A public hearing was held in Hartford Tuesday to discuss a bill to crack down on sexual assaults on college campuses in Connecticut.

Dozens of students testified in favor of the bill that would establish "affirmative consent" as the threshold in campus investigations of sexual assault.

Advocates say the bill would shift the burden of proof and help end victim blaming. Instead of requiring a victim to prove he or she said "no," it would require the accused to prove the victim said "yes."

Peggy Pisano, of the Rape Crisis Center in Milford, says centers across the state often deal with cases of implied or assumed consent, where the victim didn't want to have sex but didn't explicitly say "no."

"Our stats are that 25 percent of college students are being sexually assaulted, which one in four obviously is a tremendously high figure and many would argue that it's far higher than that," she says.

The University of Connecticut and the University of New Haven also have affirmative consent policies on campus. The affirmative consent bill passed the House last year but never came up for a vote in the Senate.