The issue is part of a larger debate about how campus conduct hearings should coexist with the criminal justice system when addressing matters as serious as rape. The Education Department has been adamant that administrators respond aggressively when students complain of sexual misconduct — whether or not they also file a claim with the police.

Schools that fail to follow that guidance may risk losing federal money.

Dorie Turner Nolt, the department’s press secretary, said officials there “look forward to opening a dialogue with the student leaders” on the composition of conduct boards. “The voice of students is critical,” she said, “as we continue the work of ensuring every college is a safe and healthy environment free from the threat of sexual assault or harassment.”

Indeed, the conversation surrounding sexual violence and the movement to change the culture, the student leaders wrote, “is one that, in many ways, defines our generation.”

No: Amateurs in Adjudication

There are three commonly given reasons for limiting conduct panels to faculty members and administrators. The first is that students lack the experience and sophistication needed to make decisions that may have lifelong consequences for the accuser and the accused, who could face expulsion.

Even that understates the problem, said Joseph Cohn, the legislative and policy director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which is skeptical of the entire enterprise of adjudicating serious crimes on campus instead of in the courts. “It’s only targeting one aspect of the incompetence, when the whole process is infected by incompetence,” he said. “When you have an 18-year-old student and a librarian deciding whether to end an 18-year-old’s career, you have to wonder about that.”