California lawmakers passed a 'yes-means-yes' campus sexual assault bill, that will make California the first state to define when "yes means yes" during sexual assault investigations on college campuses. The state Senate unanimously approved the new legislation. The bill still has to be signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown by the end of September

The sponsor of the bill says that the new legislation will change how campus officials investigate sexual assault allegations.

Activist Sofie Karasek, who has fought for changes in investigative practices at UC Berkeley said "It does change the cultural perception of what rape is. There's this pervasive idea that if it's not super violent then it doesn't really count."

There is a growing trend by universities to define consensual sex. The new definition can better help protect victims. Schools have been adopting standards to distinguish what constitutes consent. The University of California and Yale have both changed language determining what constitutes consent for a sexual activity. 

The legislation was passed by California's state Senate in May. It came the state assembly this month. The bill would require all schools that get public funds for student financial assistance to set an "affirmative consent standard" that could be used by investigators probing sexual assault allegations. The legislation hopes to define "an affirmative, unambiguous and conscious decision" by each party to engage in sexual activity.

Governor Jerry Brown must sign the bill into law by the end of September. If he does, it would mark the first time a U.S. state requires such language to be a central tenet of school sexual assault policies, said Claire Conlon, a spokeswoman for State Senator Kevin De Leon, who championed the legislation.

After a White House task force reported that 1 in 5 female college students is a victim of sexual assault state legislatures including Maryland, Texas and Connecticut, introduced bills to push colleges to do more. The U.S. Education Department also took the unprecedented step of releasing the names of schools that are facing federal probes in how handle sexual abuse allegations. California's bill goes further than any state in requiring a consent standard.

A Los Angeles Times editorial said it would be "extremely difficult and extraordinarily intrusive to micromanage sex so closely as to tell young people what steps they must take in the privacy of their own dorm rooms."