At the close of 2018, a story of “politically correct madness” at the university went viral, getting a lot of play in conservative publications and other media: Supposedly, according to a University of Missouri official, you could be guilty of sexual misconduct if you asked a shorter person out on a date, because your height puts you in a position of power. Call it courting while tall.

As it turns out, it was largely a false alarm. There is no policy at Mizzou against asking out the vertically challenged. What’s more, the case in which this issue arose was almost certainly an instance of real sexual harassment, not Title IX abuse.

Nothing to see here, then? Not quite. When you look at the full story, it still points to some real problems with current campus policies — and the way those policies can be bad not only for students accused of misconduct, but for potential victims.

Was the story misrepresented? Definitely. KC Johnson, usually a sharp and scrupulous critic of Title IX policies, tweeted a thread which implied that the male student in the case was found guilty of a violation for an unwanted date request, due to being “physically larger” than the female student. This rather misleading claim was repeated almost verbatim in a National Review piece by Kat Timpf (later retracted with a correction). Other reports accurately noted that the man had made repeated unwelcome advances, but also suggested — incorrectly — that his height was a substantial factor in being sanctioned. Clearly, many critics of Title IX pounced on a story that confirmed their narrative. Myself included.

On the other side, attorney Andrew Fleischman, who posted a detailed debunking of National Review’s report, argues that the man (who is suing Mizzou for what he considers excessive punishment) is guilty of egregious harassment and that the school acted appropriately.

And in the middle, my Reason colleague Robby Soave argues that while the story was misreported, it’s not quite a nothingburger: university officials did suggest in a deposition both that the man’s height created a power disparity and that students who were unsure whether a request for a date amounted to sexual harassment could clear it in advance with the Title IX office. That’s disturbing.

I agree with Soave, but I think there are other issues here as well.

The plaintiff in the case, former Ph.D. student Jeremy Rowles, claims that his punishment has effectively ended his academic career. Rowles was initially given a four-year suspension, later reduced to two years; he would also have to satisfy a “four-part remediation plan” (no specific details of which are provided in the documents) before returning to the school. Among other things, Rowles claims that he is a victim of race discrimination — he is black — and that white students who have committed similar offenses have received less severe penalties.

According to documents, Rowles first met Annalise Breaux when she was working at a campus coffee house. Several months later, in spring 2016, he joined a dance fitness class she had started teaching at the student recreation center, and they struck up a friendship; Breaux assumed Rowles was gay and did not pick up on his interest in her until he asked her out. Taken aback, she told him she was “too busy this week,” which Rowles apparently took to mean that she was agreeing to a date next week. In the days that followed, he sent her Facebook messages “which became more frequent and increasingly romantic.” Finally, Breaux sent him a note saying that she wanted to keep their friendship professional and that his comments were inappropriate: “I still want you to come to [the class] and enjoy your time there, but I need my space outside of class and I think a line has been crossed here.”

Rowles sent profuse apologies, asserting that he had misread the situation, and continued to attend the class but did not bother Breaux again until after the summer break. In September, he attended several more of her classes and asked her for tips on improving his skills; she recommended private lessons, which she said were available through the recreation center.

In early October, Rowles approached Breaux to say that he had been unable to find a private instructor and asked if she could give him private lessons; she told him she did not do that. On October 7, she dashed off to the bathroom after the class to avoid Rowles; he gave one of her co-instructors a note for her with a cryptic message intended to ask if they could start over. A week later, he handed Breaux a long letter with apologies and professions of eternal love. Shaken, Breaux gave the letter to her supervisor, who alerted the associate director of the recreation center; the director wrote to the Title IX office to report that Rowles had sexually harassed not only Breaux but her three co-instructors. (The three were later interviewed; none were interested in filing a complaint, though it’s unclear whether there had been any inappropriate behavior toward them on his part.)

Was Rowles a stalker or merely an annoying suitor? Fleischman portrays his behavior as relentless stalking, suggesting that “it lasted six months after [Breaux] tried many times to stop it.” But this is also misleading. During the spring 2016 semester, when Breaux clearly told Rowles that she did not want a romantic relationship and his messages had crossed a line, he apologized and stopped his pursuit. (His only transgression before that was not getting that “I’m too busy this week” is a polite way to say “I don’t want to date you.”) The actual harassment was limited to two or three incidents in the first two weeks of October. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that Breaux had no reason to be upset and alarmed; but it’s also not the same as six months of continual stalking and harassment.

Rowles’s size and alleged power became an issue because his lawyers argued that his behavior did not meet the legal criteria for peer sexual harassment, which require “severe or pervasive and objectively offensive” conduct. In a deposition, some Mizzou officials tried to suggest Rowles was in a “position of power or authority” vis-a-vis Breaux, which would mean that any unwelcome advances constituted sexual harassment.

For what it’s worth, Breaux said that she did not feel threatened or physically intimidated by Rowles, only “uncomfortable.” She also thought his behavior was not malicious but “bizarre,” stemming from “inability to read social cues.” (This points to a fact that doesn’t get enough recognition: a lot of male sexual misconduct comes not from entitled, high-status men oozing “toxic masculinity” but from socially awkward misfits who may well have emotional disabilities.)

Rowles’s prior brush with a sexual harassment charge — to some, evidence that he was a serial offender — also arguably shows behavior more eccentric than malevolent. As a teaching assistant in a class, he had invited a female undergraduate into his office and offered to share exam questions with her, adding that he didn’t “want money.” The student took this as a hint that he wanted sexual favors; the official who investigated the case acknowledged that there was no evidence of a quid pro quo offer. Rowles’s gesture was very likely his idea of impressing the student with a gift (a weird idea, to be sure).

Rowles clearly had issues with social boundaries and appropriate behavior — issues that, on at least one occasion, made things very difficult for another student (Breaux). The university was fully justified in taking action. But one can also argue that the actual punishment was an overreach. Rowles claims that when he agreed to have the case handled via “informal resolution” rather than a full hearing, he was not advised that possible penalties included being barred from campus altogether. A ban on contact with Breaux, as well as mandatory counseling, seems a much more effective way of dealing with the situation.

In conversations about this story on Twitter, some advocates for men have tried to paint Breaux as the villain of the story: a manipulative female who encouraged Rowles to stay in her dance class because she liked having him around as an admirer. To read such nefarious intent into Breaux’s attempt to be nice (“I still want you to come to [the class] and enjoy your time here”) is absurd and misogynistic. But to turn Rowles into a uber-stalker and a symbol of male harassment of women is nearly as misguided. Behind a lot of Title IX are human realities that no ideological narratives can capture.

“Distrust narratives” seems like a good lesson to learn from the Mizzou story.