With the laudable goal of combating campus sexual assaults, Gov. Cuomo signed the college “affirmative consent” bill into law last week, also known as “yes means yes.”

Unfortunately, the centerpiece of the law says that violations of “yes means yes” can be determined by a panel of college administrators.

The criminal-justice system, rather than campus tribunals, is the place to deal with these matters. The bill’s unintended consequences are thus profoundly unsettling.

The law’s confused standards harm victims of sexual assault as well as the accused. That’s because victims’ pursuit of justice will be impaired by a vague set of rules and an enforcement system outside of the courts that won’t have the same access to evidence and witnesses (a campus tribunal has no subpoena power, for example) that a court would.

And anyone accused will find themselves without guarantees of due-process protections, facing charges from an ill-defined consent standard.

As Professor Robert Carle of King’s College in Manhattan put it, “Affirmative consent laws trivialize sexual assault by turning nearly everyone who has ever dated into a sexual offender.

“For example, if a student throws her arms around her boyfriend and kisses him without his permission, even if she has done this dozens of times before, she has violated affirmative-consent policies. She can, at some later date, be hauled before a campus judiciary on charges of sexual assault.

“Victims of sexual assault should fear this new regime, because it will inevitably confuse rightful cases of abuse with capricious accusations.”

The professor’s scenario sounds outlandish. But the law is sweeping and makes no allowance for missed “signals” or past history.

This vague definition of consent isn’t helpful to anyone. Sexual-assault victims don’t need a muddled system. They need a system complete with experienced investigators and a forum capable of distinguishing guilt from innocence with the ability to deliver punishment and prevent predators from harming others.

In what are bound to be difficult-to-adjudicate cases, the accused will face the serious consequences of expulsion, loss of a small fortune already spent on tuition and a stigma that will cause a significant diminution of future opportunities without the most basic due-process rights.

This legislation demands that colleges set up tribunals, but there’s no right to an attorney.

A wealthy student will likely have parents pay for a lawyer. A middle-income or lower-income student will likely not get an attorney and the process, unlike our criminal-justice system, won’t provide him with one.

It will, however, provide for an “advisor” to assist with the process who may or not be capable of offering sound advice the way an attorney versed in criminal law can.

Unlike a court of law, these tribunals can make up their own rules. For example, hearsay will likely be admissible, denying the accused the right to confront witnesses against him as afforded in the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution.

The accused will probably not have the Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination in a campus tribunal.

Students who refuse to participate and testify in their own defense can expect to be suspended or expelled.

On whom does the burden of proof fall? The burden of persuasion? It isn’t clear, and can easily lead to different campuses interpreting the law’s requirements in different ways.

The law does call for a student bill of rights, but this raises the obvious question: What’s wrong with the actual Bill of Rights?

Where there are flaws in the criminal-justice system we should reform them, not start a parallel system with fewer protections for the accused that is less likely to achieve a just result for victims.

In short, experienced judges, elected prosecutors, grand-jury indictments and a jury of the accused’s peers are superior to a court of college administrators.

Unfortunately, Cuomo, with the support of lawmakers who feared simplistic negative campaign ads on this complex subject, sided in favor of a politically popular but legally dubious sexual-assault bill that will deny justice and encourage injustice on every campus.

The people of New York state deserve better.

Assemblyman Kieran Michael Lalor (R) represents Dutchess County.