The Trump administration lacks credibility on the issue of sexual assaults, but its effort to improve the response of colleges to the problem shouldn't be dismissed outright.

Donald Trump rightly lost many people's respect when a video of him talking about grabbing women sexually was released during the presidential campaign. His education secretary, Betsy DeVos, has also invited well-deserved skepticism over how she addresses sexual assaults, particularly after an official in her department made up statistics to downplay the problem on college campuses.

The fact remains that too many sexual assaults happen yet are unreported or swept under the rug on campuses and beyond. But DeVos is right that the Obama administration's remedies to the problem have in some cases gone too far in removing due process protections for the accused.

Those remedies stem from a 2011 letter sent by Obama's Education Department to college officials, which required a tougher response to sexual-assault allegations and warned of a loss of federal funding for noncompliance. DeVos announced this month that the rules outlined in the letter would be revamped.

University disciplinary systems are imperfect places for handling sexual assault cases. The circumstances of some cases, such as those in which the victim was intoxicated and may not have clear recollection of all details, make them difficult to investigative.

But these same issues can cause law enforcement to be reluctant to pursue all but the most serious cases, putting sexual assault survivors in a horrible situation if they have to attend school with their attacker. Colleges should be able to review sexual assaults along with other student misconduct and punish those who violate established standards of behavior.

Unfortunately the Obama administration's guidance caused some schools to excessively lower standards for evidence and prevent the accused from defending themselves. A recent series in The Atlantic magazine lays out a convincing case that such remedies have created unintended consequences and undermined the system's legitimacy.

A report cited in the series by the conservative Foundation for Individual Rights in Education gave 79 percent of major universities a D or F on whether they provided due process protections for the accused.

Groups such as the American Association of University Professors have called for a return to a requirement for "clear and convincing" evidence in determining guilt, as opposed to a current standard allowing anything over a 50 percent likelihood of guilt. Other changes worth reevaluating include banning the cross examination of accusers and allowing a single official to investigate, prosecute and decide punishment.

The Trump administration is a flawed messenger on the issue of sexual assaults and DeVos has offered flawed solutions such as a system of regional centers to handle assault claims. Colleges and universities should instead take the opportunity to improve their disciplinary systems on their own, without compromising efforts to prevent sexual assaults and punish those who commit them.

REPRINTED FROM THE NORTHWEST FLORIDA DAILY NEWS