"Yes Means Yes" Law Proposed by Some Arizona Lawmakers

Article here. Excerpt:

'Some Democratic Arizona lawmakers have proposed a "yes means yes" policy at the state's universities that would require clear consent for any sexual activity.

A similar proposal was passed into law in California in an effort to combat what's been called a growing problem of sexual assaults on college campuses.
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Arizona's version, House Bill 2474, was proposed by Democratic Representative Juan Mendez, who was not immediately available for comment. (According to an assistant, he was out of the office for Indian Nations and Tribes Legislative Day, as part of his district includes the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community.)

The bill calls for all public and private universities in the state to have clear policies that "define consent to sexual activity as informed and freely given words or actions that indicate a willingness to participate in mutually agreed on sexual activity."

In California, part of the reasoning behind the law was as a response to news that the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights had investigations into 55 schools for possible Title IX (sex discrimination) violations in how they handled particular sexual-assault cases that allegedly occurred on those campuses.

Arizona State University is one of those 55 schools.

It's also been reported that ASU has settled two lawsuits with students who said they were raped on the ASU campus.

The affirmative-consent bill proposed by Mendez would make it clear that things like "silence" and "lack of resistance," among other things, don't count as consent. It also includes provisions that would preclude someone under the influence of alcohol or drugs from being able to give consent, and states that any party in sexual activity can withdraw their consent during that sexual activity.'