Right now, investigators can ask sexual assault survivors if they resisted their attacker or denied them consent. A California lawmaker wants to change that.
The University of California, Berkeley.
Robert Galbraith / Reuters
Lawmakers in California are currently considering Senate Bill 967, which would require any school that gets state funds to adopt an array of sexual assault policies. The bill is the brainchild of California State Senator Kevin de Leon, who told BuzzFeed in a recent interview, "There's a rape culture that's pervasive on many college campuses." De Leon wants to change the culture and believes his bill is a step in that direction. The bill deals only with the way colleges handle sexual assault and does not change law enforcement policy. It also leaves it up to schools to determine who will conduct investigations, and survivors would get to decide if any police should be involved.
The specific policy mandates of the bill are fairly straightforward. Schools would have to provide sexual assault-related orientation, crisis centers, counseling, and other services. However, one aspect has captured more attention than anything else: "affirmative consent."
The idea is that two people must clearly give consent before having sex, and the bill's language makes clear that both people participating in an intimate encounter are responsible for obtaining that consent:
It is the responsibility of each person involved in the sexual activity to ensure that he or she has the affirmative consent of the other or others to engage in the sexual activity.
That may sound obvious — lack of consent equals rape, right? — but it's actually a significant shift away from the idea of "no means no," where at least some of the responsibility fell on those who ended up as victims. Under De Leon's law, no means no, but so does not somehow saying yes. The law also makes clear that a person who is drunk or asleep, among other things, can't consent to sex. "We're changing the status quo," De Leon said to BuzzFeed.
State Sen. Kevin de Leon on June 4, 2014.
AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli
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