Campus sexual misconduct policies are grounded in affirmative consent. In this informative module, T9 faculty Liz DeChellis and Nora Rohman explore this complicated terrain and focus on the challenges of finding out whether consent was obtained, including how to ask the necessary questions to ascertain:
- What the parties communicated to each other, both verbally and non-verbally
- Whether the Complainant was incapacitated due to drugs, alcohol, and/or sleep
- What happens when people experience alcohol-induced blackouts or other memory impairments
- Whether the Respondent could have reasonably known the Complainant was incapacitated
- Whether consent was provided for each escalation of sexual activity
Liz and Nora provide strategies to overcome the difficulties of gathering evidence on these sensitive topics, including determining facts around varying degrees of intoxication. They look at the sliding scale between intoxication and incapacitation and how campus policies define the incapacitation threshold.
This module helps investigators, hearing officers and others involved in these complaints determine what information to gather related to consent, and how to analyze that information.
The potent combination of young adults, sex, drugs and alcohol has investigators wrestling with intimate issues that have long-lasting repercussions. Liz DeChellis and Nora Rohman help navigate your role as investigator through these complexities.
Consent and Incapacitation
Campus sexual misconduct policies are grounded in affirmative consent. In this informative module, T9 faculty Liz DeChellis and Nora Rohman explore this complicated terrain and focus on the challenges of finding out whether consent was obtained, including how to ask the necessary questions to ascertain:
- What the parties communicated to each other, both verbally and non-verbally
- Whether the Complainant was incapacitated due to drugs, alcohol, and/or sleep
- What happens when people experience alcohol-induced blackouts or other memory impairments
- Whether the Respondent could have reasonably known the Complainant was incapacitated
- Whether consent was provided for each escalation of sexual activity
Liz and Nora provide strategies to overcome the difficulties of gathering evidence on these sensitive topics, including determining facts around varying degrees of intoxication. They look at the sliding scale between intoxication and incapacitation and how campus policies define the incapacitation threshold.
This module helps investigators, hearing officers and others involved in these complaints determine what information to gather related to consent, and how to analyze that information.