Learn Liberty – an organization for which I’ve done several videos – has a new blog. I’ve got a piece up there this morning on “affirmative consent” laws and college sexual harassment.

In states like California and New York, universities are now required to adopt affirmative consent policies in order to maintain their eligibility for state funding. These policies change the way campuses understand “consent” for purposes of defining sexual harassment:

“Affirmative consent” means affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity. 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. Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent. Affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time. 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.

There’s been a lot of confusion about these laws, with some commentators (both sympathetic and critical!) believing that affirmative consent means explicit consent. But those are different standards, I argue. And while policies requiring explicit consent really are indefensible, there are good reasons for people who take consent seriously – and that means you, libertarians! – to support the requirement of affirmative consent.

There are a lot of problems with the way campuses currently handle sexual assault. Conflicts of interest are pervasive, the proceedings are usually non-transparent, and the process often involves inadequate protection for both claimants and defendants. And some of those problems may lead to affirmative consent policies being (mis-)applied in an unjust way. But those are problems with the application of the standard, not the standard itself. And I’m inclined to think that even taking the potential problems of misinterpretation into account, the benefits of the policy outweigh the costs.

Anyway, read the whole piece here and let me know what you think.