consent

Misguided Columbia Consent Campaign Decidedly Not ‘Bae’

Photo: BWOG Columbia Student News

Faced with mounting criticism of its sexual-assault policies, Columbia University has formulated a new approach to combat sexual violence on campus: hanging posters that say “Consent Is Bae.”

Classes haven’t even started yet, but students are already upset over the posters distributed by Columbia’s Sexual Violence Response Center, which use the popular-circa-2013 slang phrase as an acronym for “Before Anything Else” to push New York’s new affirmative-consent rules. You know, because kids these days only listen when you speak in memes.

Of course, our inability to have informative, frank discussions with teenagers and young adults about sex is pretty much exactly why the new consent rules were needed in the first place. If we addressed this issue way before college, we wouldn’t have to try to reach them with “relatable” awareness campaigns now.

Columbia Consent Campaign Decidedly Not ‘Bae’