At Brandeis University, in Waltham, Mass., three staff members on The Justice, the student newspaper, were notified in February that they would be called to a university meeting — the first step in a disciplinary process — because the newspaper had audiotaped a public rally in 2015 at which students criticized the university’s handling of sexual assault cases.

Someone had complained that the rally was recorded without permission, which the complainant viewed as possibly violating state law and college rules. The Justice had used the recordings for an article about the rally. No formal charges were filed, the university said, because it concluded that student journalists covering public events were within their rights to use recording devices.

“We were very concerned that the student press at Brandeis was being targeted unfairly,” said Ari Cohn, a lawyer with the nonprofit Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which aided the students. “The public relations issues around sexual assault on campus are massive right now. There’s definitely a desire by universities to be out in front of those issues and to show they’re taking this seriously. In some cases, like this one, that causes an overreaction.”

The Daily Tar Heel, an independent publication at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, sued the university on Nov. 21 after officials refused to release details about sexual assault cases there. In a statement, the vice chancellor for communications, Joel Curran, said the university had a “profound responsibility to protect and vigorously defend the privacy of sexual assault victims and all students, including witnesses, who may be involved.”

But Jane Wester, The Daily Tar Heel’s editor, said, “Once someone has been found responsible for a violent offense, the university is under no obligation to keep that information private.” At Indiana University, the independent Indiana Daily Student has been battling since September to obtain a 13-page report on the school’s inquiry into sexual assault accusations against a former ballet instructor, Guoping Wang, who was arrested in July and charged with sexual battery of a student. The criminal case is pending.

Hannah Alani, the investigations editor for The Indiana Daily Student, said the university’s refusal to release its report – partly on grounds that it is part of Mr. Wang’s personnel file — fits a pattern in which the university has repeatedly declined requests related to sexual assault, prompting it to seek legal advice.

“Indiana University insists it takes sexual assault seriously,” said Ms. Alani, whose newspaper has been aggressively covering campus sexual assault. “But when pressed for transparency on student and faculty cases, the university tells the public very little.”