Compliance officers investigate, report on, and oversee the correction of behaviors that fail to comply with the law. At colleges they monitor a vast array of regulatory requirements in areas as diverse as health care, scientific research, immigration, labor law, and environmental safety. Until recently the strongest argument in favor of a compliance program has been that, under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines, an organization could mitigate criminal liability by demonstrating that it had an effective program in place. However, since the Supreme Court decided last year that federal judges can ignore the guidelines, that rationale no longer necessarily applies. The author argues that compliance programs are kept in place, not necessarily to indicate any commitment to follow the letter of the law, but rather to deflect unwanted attention from an institution's activities.