With Campus Sex Assault Law Set To Take Effect, Cuomo Says 'It's Time To Change The Culture'
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- On the first day of classes at many of New York's private universities, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and other elected officials discussed tough, new regulations for reporting sexual assaults on campus.
As WCBS 880's Marla Diamond reported, the "Enough is Enough" campus rape law includes a new state police Sexual Assault Victims Unit. The law also expands the so-called "yes means yes" definition of consent to New York's private universities.
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"It's time to change the culture and change the mind-set and change the paradigm," Cuomo said Wednesday on the NYU campus. "The burden is not on the woman."
With Campus Sex Assault Law Set To Take Effect, Cuomo Says 'It's Time To Change The Culture'
As CBS2's Dick Brennan reported, Cuomo said, under the new law, colleges and universities will no longer be able to sweep sex assault under the rug.
"It is a crime," the governor said. "It violates the law. And I don't care what the school thinks about it. And I don't care what the administrative panel thinks about it."
The new victims unit will "be able to counsel women and talk to women and give them the comfort they need and still get the information and preserve the evidence to prosecute these matters as a crime," Cuomo said.
State police are assigning 12 investigators to help campus and local police statewide with college date rapes.
State Police Superintendent Joe D'Amico said he feels the trauma caused by such violence every day.
"We won't tolerate police agenices or campus security who don't take it seriously," D'Amico said.
Monica Sobrin, a Fordham University student who founded the group Students for Safer Schools, said the new law, which takes effect Oct. 5, is a start.
"But in the future, I think that if we educate people about it and what consent and healthy relationships do and do not look like, we won't have the issue of sexual violence anymore," she said.
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