State’s so-called ‘yes means yes’ law passed unanimously in state senate and will become law if signed by Governor

A California bill that demands college students get “affirmative consent” before engaging in sexual activity passed in the state’s legislative chambers on Thursday.

The state’s so-called “yes means yes” law passed unanimously in the state senate and will become law if it is signed by Governor Jerry Brown by the end of September.

In April, the White House, unveiling a task force to combat university sexual assaults, criticized the way in which colleges have handled such cases. The Obama administration also unveiled a website, notalone.gov, which offers resources for schools and students working to diminish the number of sex crimes perpetrated at universities.

“If we see this coming from a state level and the federal level, beginning with the Obama administration’s Not Alone initiative, I think it’s an important way to address the culture and be able to change the behavior,” said Sharyn Potter, a medical sociologist at the University of New Hampshire and the co-director of Prevention Innovations, an initiative to end violence against women.



The California bill, SB 967, makes clear that silence, a lack of resistance or consent given under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs does not equal consent to sexual activity.



“Affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time,” the bill states. “The existence of a dating relationship between the persons involved, or the fact of past sexual relations between them, should never by itself be assumed to be an indicator of consent.”



If the bill becomes law, public universities and colleges that receive state funding for student aid will have to comply. The office of state senator Kevin De Leon, one of the bill’s proponents, says it is the first state bill to require schools to adhere to such language.



The US department of education in May published a list of 55 schools under investigation for their handling of sexual assault cases. Three California universities and one California community college district are included on the list.



“The education of sexual assault has been one box for the administration to check when their incoming students are coming in – they tell them about how to get their meal cards, how to use the library, and oh, by the way here’s something about sexual assault,” said Potter.

“Addressing sexual assault is going to take larger cultural change and we’re lucky enough as universities and colleges to have these students for four to five years when they have really important cognitive and intellectual development going on.”



Last month, a group of US senators unveiled the Campus Safety and Accountability Act, which is meant to combat campus sexual assault.

“We are done with the days of asking victims why they drank too much or wore the wrong thing. Those days are done,” said co-sponsor Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, at a press conference on 30 July.

