Sex among college students increasingly has raised debate about consent and assault, and that discussion becomes loudest when it involves a high-profile athlete.

Such is the case of Quintez Cephus, a former University of Wisconsin Badgers football player who goes on trial in Madison this week on charges he sexually assaulted two fellow students in the spring of 2018.

Cephus, 21, was suspended from the team last summer. He then sued the university in federal court in an effort to prevent expulsion under internal Title IX procedures but before he could have his day in court on the criminal charges.

Cephus dropped that case in March. He was eventually expelled last semester after having been found in violation of the university's non-academic misconduct code, according to a UW spokesman.

How to handle claims of sexual harassment and assault among students has become a vexing issue at colleges and universities striving for timely resolutions and respect for victims while facing growing criticism that such efforts often trample due process rights of the accused.

Evan Gerstmann, author of "Campus Sexual Assault: Constitutional Rights and Fundamental Fairness," is a political science professor at Loyola Marymount University. He earned his Ph.D. at UW-Madison.

He said was not familiar with the Cephus case, but said his attorneys were right to be concerned about fighting a Title IX investigation and criminal charges simultaneously.

"There's a conflict because while you have the right to silence in the criminal case, anything you are forced to say in a civil matter can be used against you." He said civil courts routinely delay such matters in deference to the criminal case to avoid that conflict.

"But colleges often do not because they don't want a potential offender on campus. Title IX directors are trained to be aggressive about that," he said.

Cephus' criminal trial will largely turn on his credibility and that of the victims, identified in court records as AB and XY.

Cephus, 21, of Macon, Georgia, was charged Aug. 20 with one count of second-degree sexual assault of an intoxicated victim and one count of third-degree sexual assault, both felonies, and pleaded not guilty.

Cephus, his teammate Danny Davis, the women and another person had been bowling the night of April 21, 2018, and are seen on video entering Cephus' apartment building about 12:30 a.m. April 22, 2018, and leaving a couple of hours later.

One of the women later went to a hospital emergency room to report she was raped. Police then learned a second woman had also been present. Cephus told police it was all consensual. Prosecutors filed charges four months later.

Pretrial motions suggested the defense believes extensive surveillance video and cellphone information will show the alleged victims were not intoxicated, as they claimed, and that their sexual activity with Cephus was consensual.

But the defense has suffered one potentially critical pretrial defeat.

Dispute over cellphone evidence

Dane County Circuit Judge William Hanrahan denied a motion for a forensic analysis of the women's phones. Cephus' attorneys argued that the women shared only some messages with investigators and that others may exist that would reveal their motivations or beliefs when they were at Cephus' apartment early on April 22.

"The complainants made a point of providing the police with text messages, pictures and social media messages that supported their story," the defense motion reads.

"They set the limits of what the police could see and the police made no effort to obtain a more full disclosure. In fact, most of the text messages the police obtained were sent by the accusers after they arrived home outside the state and could peruse their messages without fear of having their phones seized for evidence."

They did not give police other messages, like XY's to Cephus after she'd been to his apartment asking him to get in touch with her again and marked with kiss face and heart emojis.

Stephen Meyer, one of Cephus' attorneys, also argued that the cellular records show activity on the women's phones during times they say they were being assaulted or that their phones were dead.

The defense notes that police didn't try to search the phones and accepted only the texts and photos the women chose to share. There were others to Cephus, later revealed to a degree by cellular records, that the women did not provide, but that Cephus did, his attorneys argued.

The defense asked that the phones' activity for only the 24-hour period around the incidents be extracted and that the judge review the activity himself first, to address any privacy concerns.

Prosecutors called the motion a fishing expedition.

"To subject victims to the privacy intrusion of having their cellphones forensically examined by their rapist’s attorneys would run afoul of (the state constitution) and the sense of decency victims of sexual assault deserve," Deputy District Attorney William Brown wrote in opposing the defense motion.

Hanrahan agreed, denying both the initial defense motion and a request for reconsideration.

The judge ruled for the defense on a different point, saying a rape crisis center volunteer who was with AB could be called as a trial witness. Lawyers for the counselor argued her testimony would violate the counselor-victim privilege.

But Meyer persuaded the judge that that confidentiality did not attach during a taped police interview, a process during which the defense feels the counselor may have steered questions and responses. She would not have to answer questions about things AB may have told her in confidence during counseling.

Cephus' former teammate, Davis, who court records indicate took a photo of one of the women, was suspended two games last fall but was never charged criminally. He is also expected to be a key witness at the trial.

RELATED:Lawyers for Badgers player Cephus say sexual assault charge is unconstitutional

Contact Bruce Vielmetti at (414) 224-2187 or bvielmetti@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ProofHearsay.