U.C. Irvine Freshman Start Year with Mandatory 'Yes Means Yes' Indoctrination (Orientation) Seminars

It's going to be an interesting year in California, as the state's new campus rape law goes into full effect.

I blogged on the national controversy back in April, "The Obama Administration Sows Injustice in Campus Rape Cases."

And now here's the local angle, at the O.C. Register, "For Class of 2019, sex comes with a syllabus":

Today's front pg:Colleges teach "affirmative consent"; a state ablaze; as income gap increases,can we learn to share? pic.twitter.com/ByCUHbDVft

— O.C. Register (@ocregister) August 23, 2015

IRVINE – The list of potential hazards began with earthquakes. Then fires, pandemics and gunmen on the loose.

But the hundreds of UC Irvine freshmen attending their orientation session grew most attentive when it came to a more likely peril of modern college life: sex.

“What is consent?” asked an actor in the educational video that played on a student center screen.

The other actors in the film, all UCI students, responded:

“It’s talking about what you like.”

“Consent is knowing your partner wants you as much as you want them.”

The actors described how to ask for consent:

“Is this OK?”

“What would you like me to do to you?”

“Do you want to have sex?”

Summer orientation is more explicit these days, for a reason. A number of high-profile cases cast a spotlight on the issue of sexual assault on campus, forcing colleges and universities to rethink not only how they handle such accusations but what they are doing to prevent them.

California last fall became the first state to pass a law requiring colleges to adopt sexual assault policies that include “affirmative consent.” Under the law, consent is defined as an “affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity.”

So the absence of a “no” isn’t enough. The student initiating sex must get a “yes” from the other person. Being silent or unconscious doesn’t mean yes. Consent can be revoked at any point. Students can’t give consent if they are intoxicated. And if the accused is intoxicated, that’s not an excuse for failing to get consent, the law says...

Still more.

RELATED: See Ashe Schow, at the Washinton Examiner, "5 problems with California's 'affirmative consent' bill."