By Karen Neill

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In recent months, universities have been under scrutiny regarding their sexual assault policies and how they handle sexual assault cases on campus. Although states like California, who just came out with their colloquially known “Yes Means Yes” law, which forces colleges to define sexual assault in a more black and white manner, explaining that only yes can mean yes, and silence and incapacitation do not make for consensual sex, we still as a society aren’t tackling the source of the problem.

One of the biggest problems California’s new law hopes to attack is the amount of open interpretation when it comes to consensual sex versus rape. The “no” coming from a victim’s mouth might have registered as, “Oh, they’re just playing hard to get,” or, “They don’t mean it,” in the attacker’s mind beforehand. This could have led to the decision that when taking into account what the female (most victims are women) was wearing along with how much they had to drink and the other choices they made leading up to the act would constitute consent, or at least not rape, allowing attackers and victims to share the blame. The idea of the person initiating sex needing a straightforward “yes” in order to call it consensual may remove the obscurity.

Rape is a crime. And it will not be until we can accept this unwaveringly with no questions asked that we can finally start reducing sexual harassment rates on college campuses. Until then, we are only tackling the symptoms. The new “Yes Means Yes” law which calls for affirmative consent is a great step in the right direction and hopefully it will encourage more people to report sexual assault, since although it is the most common violent crime on campuses and it is estimated that one in four women will experience sexual assault while in school, the victims’ attackers are not commonly called out. However, solely letting the school authorities deal with this instead of relaying it to the local police can make the issue seem smaller than it really is, more like a misunderstanding than a violent criminal attack.

On top of that, police need to start taking these cases more seriously. At Columbia University, Senior Emma Sulkowitcz has declared that she will carry around the very mattress she was raped on everywhere she goes until her rapist is gone from the school, either expelled or by choice. She decided to carry this burden to personify the weight that comes with being ignored by school administration and harassed by the police because Sulkowitcz is one of three women to complain about the same Columbia senior, and on all three counts the school has found him “not responsible.”

The thing to remember is that rape is a serious crime; it should be handled not only by college authorities, but by local ones as well. Real punishments need to be dealt out in order for the nation to get the clue that school campuses are not a safe zone from the law that allow you to force yourself on another person.

People need to stop marginalizing the problem. Some colleges may believe they are saving their reputation and some police may think of it as a ploy for attention but in the end they should be aware that they are both contributing negatively and giving harassers and rapists more wiggle room to escape.

Only time will tell if the “Yes Means Yes” law will steal this advantage from attackers along with solving other key issues, but the fact that at least one state is attempting to address this growing monster gives hope for the future. Now only 49 more to go.