ASHE SCHOW: Affirmative consent is a failure, but it still has defenders.

Requiring college students – but not the general population – to adhere to an affirmative consent, or “yes means yes” standard for sexual consent, has been a disaster. It has sent frivolous accusations flying, as well as lawsuits from students who were disciplined, claiming a lack of due process. But that hasn’t stopped supporters from claiming the policy is necessary.

Take the Monday editorial from the Daily Bruin, the student newspaper of the University of California-Los Angeles. In it, the editorial board points out that research has shown the policy to be out of touch with reality, but argues anyway that it should remain in place because it has made it “much easier for California law enforcement officials and judges to evaluate sexual assault cases and make less ambiguous, yet more ethical rulings.”

In fact, it has made it much easier for school administrators to kick accused students out based on an accusation even when there is evidence to the contrary. This doesn’t exactly fall under the heading of “more ethical rulings.” That’s why judges in California are halting the expulsion of students who have been railroaded since the adoption of the policy. One judge even called the current campus kangaroo courts “unfair.”

The problem is that affirmative consent defines nearly all sex as rape, since there are very few ways to safely to navigate the policy. It’s nearly impossible under affirmative consent to prove that any act of sex was not rape, short of making a video recording. By defining consensual sex so narrowly, all sex that is still consensual but not in the way the policy claims makes much of consensual sex a disciplinary matter, should an accuser want to make it one for whatever reason — revenge, hurt feelings, social pressure, etc.

It’s meant to treat all sex as rape, because that’s what feminists think.