There is a risk that professors can be exposed to allegations of impropriety as a result of housing students. The university does not bear this risk for that. Nobody is justifying assault or improper relationships, but the point is that the universities solution to the housing problem in Santa Cruz has a number of complications that seem not to have been addressed.

Perhaps a better solution would be to reduce the student population and university size to what the local housing market and community could support, given opposition to construction of student housing. Obviously they’d need to eat humble pie for that to happen, which is why it’s not being discussed.