As more stories of campus sexual assault break nationally — as well as accounts of the blind eye many colleges have historically turned to them — some of the men accused of assaults are speaking out against what they see as a discriminatory attitude toward them by the college disciplinary system.

In an exclusive with The Daily Beast, Daniel Kopin, a 21-year-old former Brown University student who was suspended for a year after his then-friend Lena Sclove brought sexual assault charges against him, explains what it's like to be accused of the crime.

On August 2, according to Kopin, he and Sclove left a party, went back to his place, and had consensual sex. According to Sclove, on the way back to Kopin's house, he squeezed her neck hard enough to cause a later-diagnosed spinal injury, and she was too shocked and tipsy to push him away when he initiated sex. Sclove emailed Kopin August 8: "Dan, you raped me." She continued that the neck-grabbing "crossed a boundary," and the experience "triggered about [her] experience with sexual harassment that week." Sclove had recently gone out with an adult E.S.L. student and had some kind of unwanted attention or encounter — she later told a friend that she was afraid to be in Providence after the incident. (Kopin's mother Liz, a retired OB-GYN, thinks that Sclove's trauma from this previous encounter is the reason she accused Daniel of rape.) Both Kopin and Sclove agree that Sclove cried during sex, but Kopin says that he asked if she wanted to stop and she said no. Kopin says that he withdrew from the school for good after he was identified in the Brown Daily Herald.

New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has taken up the cause of sexual assault survivors on campus, told MSNBC that Sclove was "brutally raped" and "nearly choked to death," and that the idea that she should have to face her attacker after his light punishment of a year-long suspension was cruel and unfair: "He should be in jail."

The story is reminiscent of that of former Duke University student Lewis McLeod, who is suing the school for his degree after being expelled for sexually assaulting a Duke woman who the school decided was too drunk to consent. McLeod and his legal team claim that the administration did not allow McLeod to defend himself or call in his own witnesses. Campus and local police investigated separately and decided not to charge McLeod before the Office of Student Conduct got involved. McLeod's expulsion has since been reversed.

In the last few years, men claiming wrongful expulsion or other damages resulting from an unfounded rape accusation have filed 20 lawsuits against colleges. They also argue that a 2011 federal directive to accept a lower threshold of proof — "preponderance of evidence" — rather than the standard of "clear and convincing evidence" works unfairly against them.

This year, three men accused of sexually assaulting female classmates are arguing that their universities' assumption of their guilt violates the 1972 Title IX law, which bans sex discrimination by schools receiving federal funds, according to the L.A. Times. (McLeod is one of them.)

Kopin, who says he was raised in an environment where believing sexual assault victims was paramount, says that he still can't believe this is happening. He's grateful for friends on his side, "who are a part of this feminist community that I'd like to consider myself a part of."

RELATED:

Five Respected Colleges, One Ivy League, Under Fire for Covering Up Sexual Assault on Campus

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Photo Credit: Getty

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