Affirmative Consent

February 21, 2017

Kent State’s current consent policy can be summarized colloquially as “No means no,” but it needs to be “Yes means yes.” The distinction is important.

"A student organization at Kent State University called Students Against Sexual Assault has proposed a change in Kent's current consent policy in order to promote affirmative consent and protect the rights of survivors of sexual assault."

October 31, 2016

"If I could do nothing else, empowering survivors [of sexual assault] is my goal." -Liz Schmidt, Vice President SASA

“Part of the issue with assault — sexual assault and things related to that — is that people don’t really like to talk about them,” said Madeline Anich, a junior political science major and president of SASA. “We’re trying to overcome that silence and overcome these barriers to help facilitate change."

October 10, 2016

Christiana Ford reports on Kent State's Students Against Sexual Assault's fence in the center of campus, a part of a long-running campaign to promote affirmative consent on campus.

May 05, 2016

One in 5 women and one in 16 men will be sexually assaulted at some point in their college career.

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Students Against Sexual Assault (SASA), an organization at Kent State University, is pushing to decrease those numbers by adopting an Affirmative Consent Policy in the Student Code of Conduct by the end of the Spring 2017 semester.

By naming the event Walk of Power, Anich hoped to take the idea of the SlutWalk and make it more inclusive. She believes that assault stems from a greater problem of certain members of society dehumanizing people and treating them as objects. She believes that freedom of expression should not be hindered by people’s fear for how society is going to punish them.