Dive Brief:
- Policies that require both parties in a sexual encounter to get clear, affirmative consent — similar to the policy recently adopted by California legislators for state-funded schools — are in place in at least 800 colleges, according to the National Center for Higher Education Risk Management.
- One reason that other “yes means yes,” or affirmative consent, policies may not have received the publicity of California’s is their wording, the Huffington Post reports. For example, some school policies refer to “effective consent” or “explicit consent.”
- Beyond preventing sexual assaults, affirmative consent policies can help combat victim-blaming questions when alleged assaults go to a campus disciplinary hearing.
Dive Insight:
As the U.S. Department of Education and Congress focus their attention on the campus rape problem, more colleges and universities are revamping their sexual assault and sexual harassment policies. By making it crystal clear how consent is defined, moving to the “yes means yes” definition rather than the ambiguous “no means no” reference, higher ed institutions are protecting themselves from appearing on the list of colleges and institutions under investigation for possible Title IX violations.
