When “no means no” shifts to “yes means yes,” is a student who can’t produce proof of consent certain to be found responsible for sexual misconduct?

Some opponents of so-called affirmative-consent policies, which are mandatory in California and New York and popular on a growing number of campuses elsewhere, say yes. They argue that such policies, designed to ensure that both students are willing participants and that silence isn’t interpreted as consent, put an unreasonable burden on an accused student. Judges in a handful of cases have agreed.

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At Stanford University, an affirmative-consent standard simply changes the elements that have to be proved, says Michele Landis Dauber, a professor of law who helped design the university’s disciplinary process for sexual-misconduct cases.

Instead of having to prove that she resisted, or said no, the accuser has to persuade investigators that she did not give consent, or that she withdrew it at some point. The accused would then have the opportunity to explain how he concluded, through words, body language, or other clues, that she was, in fact, a willing participant. The burden of proving that she did not consent stays on the accuser throughout the proceeding, Ms. Dauber says.

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Ms. Dauber, of Stanford, describes how a case could play out under an affirmative-consent standard.

“After the accuser states that she did not affirmatively consent, the accused can offer his side. But instead of saying, ‘She never said no,’ he might say, ‘She did these things,’ like taking off her shirt or moaning, which he believed meant she was consenting.”

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Ms. Dauber says she’s not surprised by the backlash against yes-means-yes policies by those who already feel the deck is stacked against men.

“There’s a certain group of people who believe that women lie about rape and that this is going to open the floodgate to a deluge of false accusations,” she says. Instead of making it harder for people to defend themselves, “affirmative consent creates a clear default rule about what their responsibilities are and tells them ahead of time what is expected of them.”