The State of California has passed a bill that hopes to fundamentally change how college authorities handle sexual assault investigations on campus.

According to the Associated Press, the bill - SB967 - received unanimous approval and is now heading to Gov. Jerry Brown. Brown has not made known his position on the bill, authored by Sen. Kevin de Leon (D-Los Angeles), but all the way up the White House, politicians of both parties have made sexual assault reform on college campuses a priority.

Instead of taking a "no means no" angle, the new bill defines consent to sexual activity as "yes means yes." Through SB 967's various amendments, it has maintained its definition of consent as "an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity."

The bill also says no response and lack of resistance are not forms of consent and that an individual cannot give consent if drugged, inebriated, unconscious or asleep.

"With this measure, we will lead the nation in bringing standards and protocols across the board so we can create an environment that's healthy, that's conducive for all students, not just for women, but for young men as well too, so young men can develop healthy patterns and boundaries as they age with the opposite sex," de Leon said before the vote, according to the AP.

The lawmakers acknowledged that consent does not always have to be explicitly verbal, that it can be given by affirmative body language or reciprocation of a physical advance. What the bill hopes to achieve is to get campus investigators to clearly define what is and what is not consent, especially if drugs or alcohol play a role.

"This bill is very simple; it just requires colleges to adopt policies concerning sexual assault, domestic violence, gang violence and stalking," Sen. Anthony Cannella (R-Ceres) told the AP. "They should have already been doing that."

But Gordon Finley, an adviser with the National Coalition for Men, argued in an editorial that Brown should not sign SB967 into effect. He argued that the bill favors the accuser at the expense of the accused, instead of giving both sides a fair shake.

This is nice for the accusers - both false accusers as well as true accusers," Finley wrote, "but what about the due process rights of the accused?"

Leaders at colleges and universities and the lobbying groups that represent them have already exhibited hesitation toward laws requiring harsher penalties for sexual assault or that call for higher investigation standards. Critics of such legislation mainly argue that sexual assault is already a crime with a lot of grey areas.

However, Title IX is a federal gender equity law that requires schools to properly investigate and adjudicate crimes of sexual discrimination. Violation of this law can result in stiff financial penalties.