Consent Cannot be Re-Written

On September 28, California governor Jerry Brown approved Senate Bill No. 967. The first part of the bill states, "In order to receive state funds for student financial assistance, the governing board of each community college district, the Trustees of the California State University, the Regents of the University of California and the governing boards of independent postsecondary institutions shall adopt a policy concerning sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking...involving a student, both on and off campus. The policy shall include all of the following: An affirmative consent standard in the determination of whether consent was given by both parties to sexual activity." This bill states that both parties should have an indication of some kind of affirmative consent, verbal or nonverbal, including a nod or moving in closer to the person. Furthermore, under the bill, someone who is drunk, drugged, unconscious or asleep cannot grant consent.The state’s decision is a step towards making colleges take action in protecting their students. This bill shows that schools in California are willing to take further precautions regarding sexual assaults in order to prevent it at schools. This movement is contrary to what we saw in Columbia University, where the school unwillingly gave out its first report regarding sexual assault within the campus only after many petitions. Two years ago, sophomore Emma Sulkowicz and two other girls were raped by their classmate, but the school dismissed all three of these cases after a "thorough" hearing.Today, we are prone to danger. According to the National Institute of Justice, a college with 10,000 students could experience as many as 350 sexual assaults annually. Although colleges have tried to address this issue in the past, many have done so with sexual assault prevention programs that hardly focus on educating would-be perpetrators. These programs instead call on potential victims to take preventative measures including drinking less and going out in groups, not attacking the core root of the problem and having a problem-solution mismatch.Although California has passed this bill and colleges are reporting to enforce it, people throughout the country are not aware of this fact. Former Dunbar resident Katie Poa ‘13 now attends UC Berkeley, one of the schools that prominently stated that the new policy of consent was being implicated. However, when I had asked her about how the situation at Berkeley was, she replied, "I've actually vaguely heard it mentioned and seen flyers posted in the bathrooms, but I don't know the full extent of it or the details." I laughed because she had only seen the flyers in bathrooms, but I’m not even sure if they are posted in the men’s bathrooms. She apologized for being ignorant about the policy, but it was enough for me to realize that these news stories were sugarcoating the effects of Senate Bill No. 967.Educating students with regards to sexual assault and consent should be done during childhood and early adolescence, not during secondary education or later. Our culture and the communities that we form wherever we are have a greater influence on college life than the actual existent law. It is a tradition in colleges to get girls drunk so that they have sex with seniors, and the students there identify this as normal, not as rape. At St. Paul’s School, a school nearby Exeter, a senior’s Harvard acceptance was rescinded because of allegations that he sexually assaulted a 15 year-old freshman. This story shows that sexual assaults are not only prone to colleges, but any type of boarding environment. Education regarding sexual assault must be done faster and in more effective way.