ST. PAUL – Today, House Higher Education Committee Chair Connie Bernardy (DFL-New Brighton) presented a proposal to the House Higher Education Finance and Reform Committee to include an affirmative consent standard to Minnesota postsecondary institutions’ sexual harassment and sexual violence policies.
“All Minnesota students deserve to feel safe on campus,” said Rep. Bernardy. “Sexual consent should never be assumed by one person. Ensuring we have a uniform policy and training methods in place across the board for all our colleges and universities is one important tool our institutions can use to educate and support our students.”
Current law requires Minnesota postsecondary institutions to establish written policies on sexual harassment and sexual violence for students and employees. This bill would require those policies to include an affirmative consent standard. This standard must incorporate the following elements:
- All parties to sexual activity must affirmatively express their consent to the activity. Consent must be knowing and voluntary and not the result of force, coercion, or intimidation. Consent must be active. Consent must be given by words or overt actions that create mutually understandable, unambiguous permission regarding willingness to engage in, and the conditions of, sexual activity.
- Silence, a lack of protest, or failure to resist without active indications of consent, is not consent.
- Consent to any one form of sexual activity does not imply consent to any other forms of sexual activity.
- Consent may be withdrawn at any time.
- Previous relationships or prior consent do not imply consent to future sexual acts.
- A person is deemed incapable of consenting when that person is unable to communicate or understand the nature or extent of sexual situation due to mental or physical incapacitation or impairment or when they are physically helpless, either due to effect of drugs or alcohol or because the person is asleep.
Although the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State, as well as all Minnesota Private College Council institutions currently employ an affirmative consent standard into their sexual harassment and violence policy, these vary by system and by individual private institution, so establishing a clear, uniform affirmative consent standard as a bare minimum is a key goal of this legislation. The other important priority is to ensure that the affirmative consent defined here is used in every school’s training.
The bill was laid over for possible inclusion to a larger, higher education finance bill.