We have frequently chronicled the curious definitions of sexual assault provided to college students, particularly the insistence that being drunk or drinking at all – in and of itself – nullifies consent.
So it’s kind of strange to see a college improve its sexual assault definition by explicitly and narrowly defining “incapacitation.”
NJ.com reports that The College of New Jersey has changed its consent definition to clarify to students what it means to be incapacitated, considering that “alcohol is involved in many of the sexual assaults reported to the university”:
At TCNJ, the new definition of effective consent will replace the word “intoxicated” with “incapacitated.” …
A person may be unable to give consent because of his or her age, or “because the person is physically helpless, mentally incapacitated, or incapacitated from alcohol or other drugs.”
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The college also added a lengthy definition of the term “incapacitated” that specifies that an individual cannot give consent if they lack control over physical movements or are unable to communicate.
“We wanted to make sure there was no confusion about a person’s ability to give consent,” said Jordan Draper, the college’s Title IX coordinator.
On the down side, the college’s definition of “effective consent” still has wiggle room for accusers to claim they didn’t consent – the highly subjective “mutually understandable words or actions” and “mutually agreed upon sexual activity.” (The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education recently noted that Connecticut’s new campus sex law doesn’t even define “sexual activity” – a “convenient” omission in the otherwise highly detailed law.)
MORE: Don’t trust a survey that lets respondents judge their own ‘incapacitation’
TCNJ is also adopting the so-called single investigator model, which has been faulted by FIRE for granting one official sweeping, unchallenged powers in a sexual-misconduct investigation. Why?
In the past, the hearing process has sometimes served as a barrier that prevented students from moving forward with allegations of sexual assaults, said Angela Chong, the college’s dean of students.
Georgia Tech is facing litigation and threats to its budget from a top state lawmaker partly because of its single-investigator model. Even under changes made in response to legal and legislative threats, University System of Georgia investigators are still under no obligation to interview witnesses provided by accused students or consider their evidence.
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