Kevin said he always thought of himself as relatively “in touch with his own privilege.”

As a senior and student government representative at Wesleyan University, a private liberal arts college in Connecticut, Kevin was known around campus as, in his own semi-joking words, a “social justice bro.” He spoke at meetings about how important it was for fraternity members like himself to address sexual assault and even helped organize bystander intervention training for his fraternity house.

None of that mattered last December, when Kevin drunkenly texted another member of student government named Melanie to ask if she wanted to hang out and hook up. (All names of accused students have been changed. BuzzFeed News was unable to reach their accusers for comment.)

Melanie said Kevin could come over but that she didn’t want to hook up. Still, Kevin continued to send her incoherent requests to do so, calling her “babe” and “slut.”

Kevin was upset when he woke up to his texts the next morning, which he didn’t remember sending. He apologized to Melanie and asked if they could meet to talk about what happened. “We all do dumb shit when we're drunk,” Melanie texted back. She told him not to worry about it: “We can definitely put it behind us.”

The two continued to work together in student government until April, when Melanie supported a resolution that would force all fraternities to go co-ed. Wesleyan has faced multiple lawsuits alleging sexual assault at fraternities in recent years, and the resolution’s backers said eliminating all-male spaces would curb campus rape culture. Some studies show that fraternity members are three times more likely to commit rape than other men on campus. But Kevin disagreed, arguing that most sexual assault takes place in dorm rooms and that there were better ways to prevent rape.

Tensions were high leading up to the final vote the week the Dean of Students summoned Kevin into his office, saying he wanted to talk about residential fraternities. But when Kevin sat down, the dean instead told him that Melanie had reported the text messages he sent her months earlier as harassment.

Kevin was given a "no-contact" order but wasn’t formally charged. Another administrator told him not to worry, since the texts, while “stupid,” were an isolated occurrence as opposed to repeated behavior and therefore not a serious concern under Title IX, the federal gender equity law that prohibits sex discrimination.

That administrator was wrong. The following week, Melanie made a formal complaint of harassment, setting the school’s disciplinary process in motion. Under that process, Kevin was immediately banned from his student government meetings. The co-ed fraternity proposal narrowly passed in his absence.

The ban was just the beginning of Kevin's problems. In May, after another student came forward to accuse Kevin of “nonconsensual kissing” four years prior, Kevin was found responsible for violating both Wesleyan's Discrimination and Harassment Policy and its Sexual Misconduct and Assault Policy. He was suspended for two semesters, weeks before he was supposed to get his diploma.

One month later, Kevin was fired from a job after his employer learned of his record. That’s when he hired a lawyer. But Kevin isn't suing the women who accused him. Instead, he's suing his school.

This week, Kevin filed suit against Wesleyan, accusing the school of conducting a “flawed” adjudication hearing and failing to provide Kevin with an “expected standard of due process.” (Wesleyan did not respond to a request for comment.)

Swift and uncompromising verdicts may be the result of successful reform efforts led by survivors and advocates seeking a long overdue zero-tolerance policy toward all forms of sexual assault. But Kevin and dozens of other male students in his position say they were treated unfairly by their colleges’ own disciplinary standards. Some of their objections even echo those of sexual assault survivors who say that the adjudication process is inconsistent and unclear.

“At first I thought they didn’t want me to participate in campus activities,” Kevin said. “Then I thought they didn’t want me to graduate. Now they don’t want me to have a job or be part of society. Do they want me to commit suicide? Is that what they want me to do? What is the endgame?”