With sexual assault at the forefront of many college administrators' minds, the customary "red zone" does not seem quite as dangerous for students.

According to the Associated Press, the period of the fall academic semester between Labor Day and Thanksgiving leaves college students more susceptible to sexual assault than at any other time. This "red zone" may not be quite as dangerous thanks to the federal government's heightened attention to the issue.

Since this same time last year, the U.S. Education Department (ED) has placed 77 schools under investigation for how they handle reports of sexual assault. In May, the ED made that list public in a larger effort to get other schools to revamp their sexual assault policies and practices.

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) has also authored a bipartisan bill that would toughen penalties on schools the federal government determined did not live up to the Title IX gender equity law. The Huffington Post previously reported the bill would require schools to toughen up on punishing those responsible for sexual assault and would also call for more surveying.

Several schools have preemptively remodeled their sexual misconduct policies and performed internal probes to assess how they have handled past cases. Some schools, like Oklahoma State University (OSU), have implemented mandatory sexual assault awareness courses for incoming freshmen.

"Sexual violence has been a huge topic for years, but the politics around it and trying to find remedies is what's changed," Lee Bird, vice president for student affairs at OSU, told the AP. "This has been an issue for my 36 years and I imagine it will be an issue on campus for the next 30."

Title IX outlaws gender discrimination, making it punishable by law for a college or university to not properly investigate or adjudicate acts of sexual misconduct. Schools also must adhere to the Clery Act, which requires them to be transparent with all crimes committed on campus. Critics of McCaskill's bill have said administrators already have a tough time handling sexual assault because it is hardly ever a matter of black and white.

With so much grey area, some administrators feel like tougher penalties will only make their job harder and may not even fix the problem.