ASHE SCHOW: Former NY lieutenant governor blasts campus sexual assault policies.

Betsy McCaughey, the former lieutenant governor of New York under Gov. George Pataki, has taken current Gov. Andrew Cuomo to task for his “toughest in the nation” proposal for campus sexual assault policies.

“It would make campuses in New York a hostile environment for young men,” McCaughey wrote in the New York Post. “One misstep and they could find themselves accused of ‘sexual assault,’ denied a fair hearing, expelled and unemployable.”

She also said Cuomo’s proposal, which introduces “affirmative consent” to private colleges, “criminalizes normal sexual interactions.” Affirmative consent requires a “conscious and voluntary agreement” that is “ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time.” This means a person must ask for consent at every step of the sexual encounter, from the first kiss through the end. And revoking consent at any time has come to mean even after the encounter has ended. . . .

“Affirmative consent is dangerous enough, but Cuomo would also deny accused students due process,” McCaughey wrote. “What goes on in a dark dorm room is usually one student’s word against another’s.”

She also described the bill’s use of the word “victim” or “survivor” as a “bias that the accuser is always right.”

McCaughey says the real problem on college campuses is alcohol abuse, which should be the focus of any college policy – not “stripping college men of their legal rights and criminalizing dorm-room hook-ups.”

She’s right, of course.