Robert Carle on How Affirmative Consent Threatens Liberty
On January 20, most college students in New York and California started their spring semesters under a new regime of sexual policing called affirmative consent ("yes means yes"). Under these policies, any student who cannot prove that he obtained ongoing, unambiguous consent to any sexual activity will automatically be guilty of violating campus sexual assault policies. But as Robert Carle explains, affirmative consent laws turn normal human interactions into sexual offenses. They establish a presumption of guilt and strip the accused of due process protections. And they are also being used by campus activists to selectively prosecute students with unpopular viewpoints on controversial issues.
