Re-education

AT THE University of Minnesota, some 5,700 new students arrived on campus for orientation earlier this month. Each one of them has taken a course on campus sexual assaults. A new law, which came into effect on August 1st, made it mandatory for all university freshmen in the state of Minnesota to be given training within the first ten days of the school year. Minnesota is unusual for the breadth of its decree, but students, parents and university administrators across the country are asking the same questions about how widespread campus rape is and what to do about it.

California was the first state in the country to pass a law colloquially referred to as “Yes means yes”, which requires affirmative consent for sex to be considered legal. New York followed suit in 2015. Last year George Washington University became the first to make training on sexual assault compulsory for new students. The White House has its own task force on protecting students from sexual assault.