But Lewis says even these subcommittees,without the ability to subpoena any documents,lack the avenues for evidence-gathering availableto courts.

The accused and the accuser have the option tomake personal appearances before the subcommittee,but they must appear separately and cannot respondin person to each other outside of their originalstatements.

The subcommittee may also meet with otherpeople involved with the incident or witnesses. Aswith the defendant and accuser, only thesubcommittee members can interrogate thesewitnesses. Lewis says there are usually threemembers on a subcommittee.

"That is concerning," says George Fisher,associate professor at Stanford Law School. "Theaccused has a strong knowledge of the facts whichmakes it likely that the accused will be the bestcross examiner, and the accused has a greaterinterest in the process."

"It does seem outside Anglo-American norms toforbid the accused to have a hard in thequestioning either directly or through arepresentative," he adds.

While the subcommittee hears the evidence, thefull Ad Board still votes on a verdict. Themembers of the subcommittee present the evidencein a written report which summarizes the relevantinterviews in their own words.

"The subcommittee is almost invariably underthe thumb of the dean's office," Silverglate saysof his research into Harvard's procedures. "Theevidence is shifted through the prism of thesubcommittee."

He adds that interviewing witnesses in personis an essential step for the entire Ad Board indiscovering the truth of what happened.

"They don't understand there are things theymiss. How somebody puts something is veryimportant. To tell if someone is telling the truthyou have to look at them," he says. "You canobserve nervous twitches. You can observe bodylanguage. You lost all that by having thesubcommittee."

"Cross-examination is the best process yetknown for uncovering somebody who's lying,"Silverglate says.

The students are given the opportunity to readthe subcommittee report before it goes to the fullBoard.

"So if a student feels that the report has cometo the wrong conclusion, or has been influenced insome way by personal biases of the subcommitteemembers, that can all be written up by thestudents and would be shared, along with thereport, with the full Board," Lewis wrote in anemail message.

Stanford's six-person Judicial Panel allowsboth students to question each other and thewitnesses they chose to call, says Suzanna Mak,Stanford's judicial officer.

At Yale University, Secretary of the ExecutiveCommittee Jill Cutler says that the committeeinterviews all people either the accused or theaccuser feels are necessary to make their cases.Both students must attend the hearing.

At Princeton, both the accused and the accusercome together before a three-member subcommitteeof the Faculty-Student Committee on Discipline.