The Virginia Senate this week moved forward with a bill that would require nearly all full-time staff at public universities to report sexual assault to the police within 24 hours of notification.

The bill, SB 712, which would make failing to report to the police a misdemeanor, would also create some exceptions, including for campus crisis counselors.

The legislation comes on the heels of one of the most high-profile college sexual assault scandals in the country, prompted by a Rolling Stone article detailing rampant sexual violence on the University of Virginia campus. Some details from the article were later called into question.

Mandatory reporting laws, which require staff to report up the chain or to law enforcement instances of sexual assault, are controversial among victim’s rights advocates and sexual violence prevention activists.

Though they appear tough on sexual assault, advocates say that mandatory reporting requirements disempower survivors and may even discourage reporting. Survivors could be compelled to take part in a legal case against their attacker whether or not they want to press charges, and many people might choose not to report or get help at all.

In a 2002 study on the effectiveness of higher education policy toward sexual assault, several criminal justice professors and a researcher wrote:

Any policy or procedure that compromises, or worse, eliminates the victim’s ability to make her or his own choices about proceeding through the reporting and adjudication process—such as mandatory reporting requirements without an anonymous reporting option—not only reduces reporting rates but may be counter-productive to the victim’s healing process.

Proponents of mandatory reporting on college campuses say that it’s a surefire way to tackle assault, at least on campus.

“Instead of having colleges just sweep things under the table,” Virgina state Sen. Richard H. Black (R-Loudoun), the sponsor of SB 712, told the Washington Post. “We force them to go into the law enforcement arena, where they’re handled in a routine fashion.”