Blaming the victim has reached a new low: "He looked at me."

It used to be a common view of rape victims to say, "She deserved it for dressing that way and going out alone at night."

Similarly, gay bashers will offer, "I hit him after he touched me. ... or made a pass ... or said something inappropriate."

But now, at Morehouse College, a student has been expelled and charged with aggravated assault for allegedly beating another student repeatedly with a baseball bat, fracturing his skull and sending him to the hospital.

Police said today that Aaron Price, a sophomore, told them that the victim had looked at him in the dormitory shower.

That was enough for Price to go grab the bat, police say.

"It sounds like yet another version of the gay panic, a feeling from a heterosexual student that someone made a pass, whether or not that was the case," said Cathy Renna, spokeswoman for GLAAD, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, who also said vicious on-campus attacks are rare.

Gay panic can't explain itself. It's no excuse for a man who's uncomfortable -- rightly or wrongly -- to turn to violence over an unwanted remark, touch or, least of all, look.

Remember the Jenny Jones case a few years ago, when a guest on her talk show was prosecuted for the murder of another guest, who had described his secret crush on the program?

The Morehouse incident raises further troubling questions about homophobia among African-Americans, who are afflicted with an HIV infection rate that is tragically out of proportion.

And it echoes a recent case at a DeKalb County high school, where an African-American "motivational speaker" was reprimanded for allegedly saying, "God made Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve. I hope there are not any faggots in here," to a gathering of about 500 male students.

Plenty of questions remain at Morehouse. For instance, will this be prosecuted as a hate crime? And no one has confirmed that the victim is, indeed, gay.

And he told police a different story of what happened in the bathroom. He said he didn't have his glasses and, as he approached the shower areas, he saw that someone was in one of the stalls. The person said, "What you lookin' at?" according to the incident report.

"I thought you were my roommate. I was about to say what's up?" the victim responded, the report says. A few minutes later, the attacker returned with a bat and hit him six to seven times in the face, head, shoulder, back and arms.

Gay men are usually extremely cautious about leering at men in locker rooms -- despite what you might want to think. We all grew up in school locker rooms. We know how to behave.

Even if the victim did steal a glance, it does not justify the assault.

On Monday night, I went to Morehouse to attend a forum on homophobia on campus. I was first greeted warmly by members of the fraternity that sponsored the event, but then several other student leaders insisted that I leave. One even said that the school had cancelled the forum and that the hundreds of students, men and women, there had gathered informally. Another told me a school administrator had told him that no representatives of the media would be allowed, and he offered to escort me to campus police.

Fair enough, since Morehouse is a private school. But it's not the brightest way to show concern or sensitivity in response to a shocking attack at one of the nation's most prestigious black schools, whose graduates include the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

As I drove away, I saw a young man walk past a young woman -- and turn around to watch her walk away in a highly flirtatious way. It looked like she noticed and chose to ignore him -- used to such attention, as women often are.

Had she pulled a gun from her purse and fired at him, instead, I wonder if we'd be talking about blaming the victim then.