Avoid mistakes: Congressional investigations bring collateral risks, such as litigation or regulatory risks, public relations risks and reputational harm. Remember: What will play well on TV?

That’s the advice that a top education lobby group presented to colleges and universities on how to respond to a survey that Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., distributed in April to assess schools’ handling of sexual violence on their campuses. McCaskill, who championed reform of the military’s response to sexual assaults in its ranks, is now tackling campus rape. In addition to the survey, which went out to 350 schools, she has held two congressional round tables to take stock of campus policies. She is expected to introduce legislation on the issue later this month.

The American Council on Education’s (ACE) presentation — which was obtained by McCaskill’s office last week and “troubled” her “extremely” — doles out advice on how to deal with the survey but fails to mention either sexual assault victims’ needs or possible solutions. It exemplifies everything that’s wrong with schools’ responses to one of today’s most significant safety and civil rights challenges.

ACE’s exaggerated concern for universities’ reputations and bottom lines is part and parcel of the growing corporatization of higher education. Colleges pour dollars and energy into marketing their particular brands to the nation’s students (and their parents), competing for top spots on U.S. News and World Report’s best colleges list. Reputation, not education, is the goal. As schools model themselves after corporations, they are increasingly adopting the bureaucratic administrative structures and risk management strategies of the corporate world. In the last decade, administrative influence has grown, with administrative spending skyrocketing 36 percent while faculty spending increased only 22 percent. Universities have hired personnel committed exclusively to brand management and the mitigation of reputational risk. According to a 2009 Chronicle of Higher Education report, membership in the University Risk Management and Insurance Association doubled in the last decade; according to its website, the ACE represents some 1,800 higher-ed institutions.

To universities seeking to protect their brand, the potential hazards are great: Hazing, academic cheating, student suicide and sexual violence have all become risks that must be managed and mitigated. An entire legal-PR apparatus has developed around campus rape, with law firms and the education lobby profiting off universities’ fear (and by extension, students’ assaults). One particularly popular firm, the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management (NCHERM), provides advice to its client schools on how to avoid investigation by the Office for Civil Rights for anti-discrimination violations, in a guide (PDF) titled “Twenty Steps to OCR-Proof Your Campus on Title IX.” (Of the 61 colleges and universities currently under investigation for sexual-assault-related Title IX violations, NCHERM lists a majority as current or former clients.)

It couldn’t be clearer how success here is measured: in terms of the reduction of harm to universities, not to students.