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from the I'm-not-touching-this-with-a-ten-foot-pole dept.
The Guardian has a fascinating piece entitled Sexual paranoia on campus – and the professor at the eye of the storm. There is a lot going on in this article/interview and it touches on a lot of different issues in both society and higher-ed in general. Some choice quotes:
But you do end up making strange bedfellows. The people supporting free speech now are the conservatives. It's incomprehensible to me, but it's the so-called liberals on campus, the students who think of themselves as activists, who are becoming increasingly authoritarian. So I'm trying to step carefully. It's not like you want to make certain allies, particularly the men's rights people.
Kipnis's original essay was provoked by an email she received about a year before, informing her that relationships – dating, romantic or sexual – between undergraduates and faculty members at Northwestern were now banned. The same email informed her that relationships between graduates and staff, though not forbidden, were also problematic, and had to be reported to department chairs. "It annoyed me," she says. The language was neutral, but it seemed clear that it was mostly women this code was meant to protect. She thought of all those she knew who are married to former students, or who are the children of such couples, and wondered where this left them. It seemed to her this was part of a process that was transforming the "professoriate" into a sexually suspicious class: "would-be harassers all, sexual predators in waiting".
On a personal note, when I interact with students (which is every day), it's always either with an open office door, or in a public area. So as not to be discriminatory, I do the same for all students, men, women, or others. This sort of culture on campuses does make everyone suspicious of everyone else and it makes it hard to trust others. Students can't trust the instructors because they might "do something", staff can't trust the students because even a false accusation can be career ending, so there's this overall chilling effect that occurs when what should be a collegiate environment turns into an us vs them thing. This is definitely worse in some places than others, but there is an undercurrent of it everywhere. I applaud Laura Kipnis for bringing these issues to the light -- if we're going down this route, it should at least be a conscious community decision rather than bureaucratic policy handed down from University Counsel and risk assessment teams.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @10:47PM (13 children)
The people who become Academicians are Ugly or Jewish.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @10:54PM (2 children)
Not all Jews are circumcised.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @10:57PM
Don't judge a dick by its cover.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday April 14 2017, @08:10AM
Not all Jews are circumcised.
Don't believe that, it's all fake Jews.
(Score: 2) by julian on Thursday April 13 2017, @10:58PM (9 children)
Schizophrenia often causes paranoid delusions of CIA or other government agencies personally spying on you, but vast Jewish conspiracies are also a common theme. I hope you get the help you clearly need.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:05PM
You just need a common culture—the more religious, the better.
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:11PM (2 children)
Yeah, he's probably already been trying to get a surgeon to remove the microchip they implanted in his head.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:15PM (1 child)
But the only surgeons he could find to do it were all jewish.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:50PM
"But the only surgeons he could find to do it were all jewish."
Well, duh. All the non-Jewish doctors just said "There is no microchip in your head, go see a shrink for your mania". The Jewish ones said "Sure, I can remove it no problem, here is the surgery bill".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday April 14 2017, @12:17AM (3 children)
People called me Schizophrenic when I told them 5 years ago that the NSA was spying on everybody.
But now, since that's politically-incorrect nowadays, their new dog-whistle is "conspiracy theorist."
Also -- Voltaire ' if you want to know who rules you who can't you insult" yadda yadda.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @01:35AM
Also -- Voltaire ' if you want to know who rules you who can't you insult" yadda yadda.
This explains much.
I guess when you've finally finished proving nobody rules you, you'll go back to being a meek, mild-mannered reporter?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 14 2017, @02:55AM
Some people just can't comprehend complex issues. Dump them?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday April 14 2017, @09:33PM
People called me Schizophrenic when I told them 5 years ago that the NSA was spying on everybody.
5 years ago? They admitted they were doing it while Bush was still president.
I guess it's only spying-while-black that you are opposed to.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday April 15 2017, @12:42PM
back before the leaks:
> Schizophrenia often causes paranoid delusions of CIA or other government agencies spying on you
post leaks:
> Schizophrenia often causes paranoid delusions of CIA or other government agencies personally spying on you
My AI notices.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Troll) by ikanreed on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:03PM (53 children)
The actual complaint about "authoritarianism" is about the exact same kind of "Don't date people you have official power over" rules that virtually every other white-collar job in the world has, because it is miserable when you're on the wrong end of it.
There is a 0% chance of any right winger whining about free speech having any understanding of what it means.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hartree on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:15PM (7 children)
"There is a 0% chance of any right winger whining about free speech having any understanding of what it means. "
You can get that 0% by having such an extreme internal picture of what a "right winger" is that no real human qualifies.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Friday April 14 2017, @12:37AM (6 children)
Nope, it really is that bad. The USA has no sane right wing. Does not exist. Other places do, but here there's no definition of right-wing that both adequately captures the relevant political movement and isn't defined by being full of shit.
Liberals, leftists, apoliticals, and centrists can be just as bad, but there's only outright defined by their abject rejection of actual reality.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @01:43AM
Yes, the party of Bill Clinton, Anthony Weiner, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer has the monopoly on not being creepy.
sure thing [pulse.ng]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday April 14 2017, @03:04AM (1 child)
Has any political color theme any reality connection anymore? One might suspect most of them has been wrecked with entryism and various groups with the most crazy ideas has been given resources so as to wreck the discussion climate and interpersonal relations.
Right, liberal, left, apoliticals, and centrists do they really mean what people think anymore?
There will always be assholes. But when the whole climate is that of suspicion and distrust. It's not efficient. Kind of like some interests groups want people to not be able to freely discuss and associate....
You can say anything you want but we will screw your economy and character assassinate. That's fake freedom.
Almost like DDR and various totalitarian states.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @05:53AM
Has any political color theme any reality connection anymore?
Yes, yes there are.
However, telling yourself otherwise is a sign of your color being disconnected from reality.
Its that same old pre-fascist bullshit that everybody is equally bad so you are justified in being a moral failure too.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @08:55AM
Sure it does, it's what people inside the US call "left wing".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 14 2017, @11:47AM
Nope, it really is that bad. The USA has no sane right wing. Does not exist. Other places do, but here there's no definition of right-wing that both adequately captures the relevant political movement and isn't defined by being full of shit.
What part of "You can get that 0% by having such an extreme internal picture of what a "right winger" is that no real human qualifies." did you not get? Stop wasting your time with extreme straw men.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday April 14 2017, @04:01PM
No sane right wing? Did you forget about Democrats?
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:27PM (1 child)
Ahem.....
Me [soylentnews.org] less than twenty four hours ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @08:03AM
[coded message begin] SJW Special Task Force, jmorris Division, interim report. jmorris has for once self-identified. This is a positive development, one that we may be able to manipulate so as to push him closer to reality. Oh, but then it is all about him getting imaginary sex, again. OK, we are off this. Turning Surveillance over to the "Extreme Nasty" division. No one gets paid enough to track jmorris in his perversion. And it was only 24 hours ago. How many times a day does this pervert . . . never mind, we are out of here. Calling ENS divsion of the SJW Special Tactical Squads. Come in, ENS? Can you track the pervert? [end encrypted message]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @12:12AM (40 children)
You call me a right-winger regularly and I can point you easily to at least half a dozen times I've said in no uncertain terms that speech on this site will remain free as long as I'm here to argue for it. Contrast that with the riots on campuses every time Milo goes to speak. Yes, you side really is authoritarian and against free speech now. Live with it, take your party back, or switch sides.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday April 14 2017, @12:32AM (8 children)
There's an article on Breitbart * ducks * ... that stated you could end California-style idiocy by adding "political affiliation" to all those other protected categories.
Of course, leftist retards have to be selective in picking which trends are dangerous and which are not. For example, it is okay to be transsexual, but it is not okay to be transracial. The reason why it was not okay (as decided by CIA Jew media) to be transracial is because it threatened the divisive narrative of the Black Lives Matter movement by serving as an example of unity.
Had Dolezal's transracialism been allowed to be a success and gained acceptance, her plight would have resembled the plot of Dr. "Cook the Jew Goose" Seuss' story The Sneetches where one race had a star and the other didn't, so the other race built a machine to put stars on them. Then when they all met the ones who originally had the stars said that the newcomers were diluting their brand and built a machine to remove their stars so they could stay special. Then they all had a big orgy, and some machines blew up or some shit, and then some had stars and some didn't but they decided to ignore that and get along*.
* That story is really about Jews
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @01:49AM
That story Israeli about Jews. FTFY
(Score: 2, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday April 14 2017, @02:17AM
I was fascinated by what happened to Dolezal.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Friday April 14 2017, @03:12AM (5 children)
The start of your summery of the Sneetches is correct, but the machines didn't blow up and the orgy didn't happen. They spent their money like mad trying to keep up with the newest fad and Mr. McMonkey McBean--the owner of the star-on and the star-off machines--drove off with all their money and thus denying them the privilege of changing the stars on their belly, all the while laughing at the sneetches for being idiots. There were two morals to the story:
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @06:13AM (2 children)
> Race is superficial and should not matter.
Ironic since Dr Seuss was a raging racist himself. [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @01:12PM (1 child)
Uh... I fail to see anything out of place for that period of time.
If those are the best examples, I can only conclude that he was somewhat progressive in using satire to point out the cynicism of allowing blacks into the army just to fight a war for example.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @03:31PM
Uh... I fail to see anything out of place for that period of time.
Ah, the "gramps is a racist but its ok because of his generation" cop-out.
As if being racist was morally correct just because lots of people were racist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @11:57AM (1 child)
Capitalism is the allocation of resources through voluntary trade.
Everybody owns some resource that can be allocated by voluntary trade; everyone can be a capitalist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @01:08PM
Of course, when all you own is your body....
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday April 14 2017, @02:03AM (5 children)
Regarding your Breitbart so called gay alt-right buddy. I have it on pretty good authority that that the thugs at those demonstrations where paid for by associates of Milo.
As for what you say: I find I seldom agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say stupid things.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 14 2017, @02:19AM (1 child)
I have it on better authority that George Soros funds the thugs.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday April 14 2017, @05:17AM
Occam's authority-razor says people are willing to riot for free.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @10:39AM (2 children)
You need to rethink the credibility of whoever your "good authority" is.
Ditto. That's also the reason you don't find many Snowflakes around here though. By now, any that managed to find their way here have long since ragequit because (by design) there's no means to control the narrative on this site.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @02:19AM (1 child)
Says one of the biggest snowflakes here! LOL!
"I'm not upset I'm just complaining in text that sounds like I would probably be shouting if this were a conversation."
GG BRAH
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 15 2017, @02:28AM
2/10 Seriously lacking in style, originality, or relevancy.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @02:36AM (5 children)
Yes, those self-righteous right wingers do get all uppity when you try to bring a pedophile advocate to talk. Wasn't he one of the big headliners at this last CPAC? What was his speech about? Somehow I missed the details.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @10:32AM (4 children)
I expected as much from the leftards. The pedophile think has been so thoroughly debunked that you still regurgitating it is a joke. I do laugh. Like this: Ha.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @11:28AM (3 children)
You have a strange definition of "debunked"
It seems like you've taken to emulating trump in redefining words to be self-serving, like where "fake news" is anything true that he does not like.
Tired of having your bullshit regularly debunked you've decided to give it a trumpian definition instead.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @01:45PM (2 children)
You should read reports from sources you dislike the positions of once in a while. Maybe you won't look like such an uninformed fool. Nah, never mind. You'll just refuse to believe the reports that conflict with your narrative anyway.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @03:15PM (1 child)
Oh look, "go google it!"
The cop-out excuse of every liar.
Hilarious that it comes from you, the person who steadfastly refuses to even bother investigating his own claims.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @05:25PM
????? Far be it from me to defend The Buzztard but I don't think urging people to educate themselves by doing their own research is the "cop-out excuse of every liar". Just the opposite, in fact. What planet did you say you were from?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @06:09AM (16 children)
Contrast that with the riots on campuses every time Milo goes to speak.
Contrast that with how he was disinvited from all republican events just as soon as his free speech triggered them too.
The guy was a keynote speaker at CPAC and then days before the conference he was completed erased from the entire program and forced out from his job at Breitbart.
Your support for pedopolous isn't about free speech, its about your embrace of an empty edgelord. You are hung up on supporting offensive speech because it pleases you to be offensive not because you give a damn about the value of free speech. Congrats, you found a way to pretend that being an asshole is a good thing so you can still feel good about yourself for failing to ever be better than an asshole.
It is the philosophy of the modern hard right - unable to create anything good yourselves, you exist solely to tear down everybody else. Its the metaphorical equivalent of ISIS blowing up all those monuments and then just being content to live among the rubble because their ideological virtue is what really matters.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @10:29AM (12 children)
Offensive speech is the speech most in need of protection. Dipshit.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @11:30AM (9 children)
Offensive speech is the speech most in need of protection. Dipshit.
Nope. Speech that offends the powerful needs protection.
Speech that offends the weak does not, pretty much by definition.
You only ever stand up for speech that offends the weak.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @01:40PM (3 children)
All offensive speech is the most important kind to protect because you can always find someone offended by anything. I, for instance, am offended by your willful idiocy.
By the way, do you know what the consequences are of being offended? Absolutely nothing.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @03:22PM (2 children)
All offensive speech is the most important kind to protect because you can always find someone offended by anything. I, for instance, am offended by your willful idiocy.
That's a non-sequitur. I said what matters is offending power, you have no power your offense is of no value.
By the way, do you know what the consequences are of being offended? Absolutely nothing.
If that's true, then what is the value of offensive speech? If absolutely nothing comes of it, then its a no-op.
Says a lot that what you care about most is literally absolutely nothing.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @10:59PM (1 child)
It's not about value, dumbass, it's about liberty. If you're not free to offend then all anyone has to do to shut you up is feign offense.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 15 2017, @02:35AM
Hey finally something of value out of TMBs craw.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday April 14 2017, @01:57PM (4 children)
That's extremely short-sighted. There is always a weaker and a more powerful but the people within those groups change.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @03:19PM (3 children)
That's extremely short-sighted. There is always a weaker and a more powerful but the people within those groups change.
And when that context changes, the speech that needs defending changes too.
Why is that hard to understand? Its almost like you'd rather not actually think about the content of the speech.
In which case, why is speech important at all?
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday April 14 2017, @03:24PM (2 children)
Who decides which speech is the important speech to protect? Let's just protect as much of it as possible. Having to constantly tweak which speech is protected sounds like a potential mess.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @03:34PM (1 child)
Who decides which speech is the important speech to protect?
The people protecting it.
Having to constantly tweak which speech is protected sounds like a potential mess.
You write like there is an official list of important speech. If you are a human you know that's not true.
People always make contextual judgments. That's how life works.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @11:03PM
What a fucking moron. At best you might get eight years of being able to be as big a dipshit as you like, then the other party would get in and shut you down or throw you in jail. The fucking counter jockeys at McDonalds have more of a clue than your ass.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @05:29PM (1 child)
How the hell did this drivel get modded up? Buzzard, are you manipulating mods with sock puppets again?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @10:57PM
Newp. I'd have to care about how I'm moderated for that to make sense.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday April 14 2017, @04:22PM (2 children)
To preface this, I'm left enough to see Bernie Sanders as a moderate. Anyway, when I first heard about Milo and how he was a nazi sympathizer I went to track down exactly what he said -- I spent a couple hours on youtube listening to numerous talks he did, searching for various permutations of "milo" and "nazi", but I didn't find anything shocking. And yes, I did listen to the entire Joe Rogan thing.
I don't agree with the vast majority of Milo's economic positions, but he was funny and he could articulate his position well. Mostly, he struck me as a comedian whose politics are opposed by many more leftward leaning people, including myself, but I didn't find anything demonstrating he was a nazi sympathizer and the pedo thing seemed wildly overblown and taken out of context (although it being some time ago now, I can't recall exactly what led me to this conclusion and all I remember is the conclusion I reached for myself).
I do find it deeply concerning that speech is becoming so highly regulated in modern society and even more concerned that it is ostensibly left-leaning people pushing for such restriction. They seem to forget that when speech is regulated by whoever is in power, you end up with some serious shit -- like McCarthy and Hollywood blacklists. It's like how all through Obama's admin, all the neocon stuff he did (coddling Wall St/banksters, war, drones, NSA, 4th amendment, due process free execution, etc.) never got a real airing. It's like no Democrat ever thought "What would Cheney do with this executive power grab?" And now we have Trump and they're freaking out. In a similar vein, the people on the left advocating restrictions on speech, have forgotten that they may not always be the ones in power, and should be a little more circumspect on restricting speech as a form of future self-protection.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @05:08PM (1 child)
I do find it deeply concerning that speech is becoming so highly regulated in modern society
That is the contrafactual narrative of the right. There is more free speech today than ever before in the history of america.
As broadcasting has democratized, places that had been previously necessary forums for ideas no longer serve that role. When anyone can post a video on youtube or a blog on wordpress and have an audience of millions of people the importance of hosting speakers is no longer so much about maintaining the free flow of ideas as it is about endorsing ideas. There is a transfer of reputation from the institution to the invited speaker (and vice versa) that was not as much of a factor when there weren't any other ways to reach an audience. Its no wonder that people are concerned about the co-opting of that institutional reputation by those who advocate for dehumanization of minorities.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday April 14 2017, @08:39PM
So in other words, any institution should avoid hosting anything controversial. For all the verbosity in your post, your argument boils down to this: "Never host a talk on a controversial topic." What shall we call this? NeoMcarthyism sounds about right but please, weigh in.
Secondly, how do people become adept at defending or articulating a position, if they never face challenges? Institutions of learning should not be places where people are coddled into incompetence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @09:36PM (1 child)
The protests on campuses aren't in an attempt to prevent Milo from speaking. They are in opposition of the school sponsoring him as a speaker. If he wants to stand in a public place and spout his hateful ideas, that's fine.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday April 14 2017, @10:35PM
The schools haven't sponsored the talks. Those have been organized, and paid for, by students. Care to try again?
Also, why is it okay to spout hatred from the fringe left but anyone not decidedly left of center (no moderates allowed either) gets no-platformed?
That's some serious mental gymnastics to say stopping someone from speaking where they've been invited is not stopping someone from speaking.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @05:09AM (1 child)
I am sure there are other examples, but the majority of Condor Hero revolves around a Sifu and her student who end up becoming embroiled in a controversy over this exact thing, since culturally a teacher is supposed to act like a parent, even though in this particular case they were of a relatively similiar age (within a decade, which is often similiar to many of the student/professor relationships mentioned in this policy.)
While I understand the complaints on both sides of the walled garden, I am not sure how useful these policies really are, any more than other forms of workplace romance.
Having said that: Where were all these scandalous teachers when I was single and in school? :P
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @05:33PM
Well, you are obviously just plain butt ugly. You need to get over yourself.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:11PM (5 children)
If you (a professor) are using your position of power to get in bed with students, there's something unseemly about that. And the asymmetry can easily lead to problems that end up hurting the student, professor, and the university's mission. Sure, banning student-teacher relationships will also prevent some connections that would have been positive and unproblematic. But in life many people are off-limits as romantic or sexual targets. Get used to it.
Children of a student-teacher couples probably realize that standards of behavior change over the years.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @12:42AM (2 children)
Not really. People are attracted to prestigious members of the opposite sex.
Yes, consenting adults are never off-limits though. If the relationship takes place off campus, there is nothing... REPEAT NOTHING that the university can legally do about it! Get used to it!
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @01:54AM (1 child)
Ahh, my comment (parent) was modded troll for stating lawful and societal facts. What exactly is wrong with left-tards? What is it about personal liberty and responsibility that they find so abhorrent? That they somehow know better and people should live a life without agency? Sickening, delusional and authoritarian bunch of utter retards!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @03:28PM
> Ahh, my comment (parent) was modded troll for stating lawful and societal facts.
Nah, you are a troll because you misrepresented the law and 'societal facts.'
(a) The school absolutely can prevent it through their employment contract
(b) You misrepresented the power dynamic between faculty and students as if they are of equal power relative to each other which obviously false
(Score: 3, Informative) by looorg on Friday April 14 2017, @01:04AM (1 child)
You don't even have to be a professor for that, you get offers even being a lowly assistant. The "Please help me pass this class" *wink*wink*nudge*nudge*know*what*I*mean* is real, you don't even have to be good looking. The university flat out tells us these days that you shouldn't be alone with (female) students one on one. If you have office hours you should keep the door open at all times - if they close it as they enter you ask them to open it again. "Open door policy" did previously mean that that students could just drop by and ask you things, now it's that the damn door stay open to your office unless you are alone in there and even then they prefer it if the door is open. When I started working here many years ago, and when I was a student, many of the smaller offices had couches in them - those are mostly gone now, no more "naps". Couches are now in public gathering areas. Some of the newer buildings look like aquariums, there are glass-walls everywhere, I'm starting to doubt they are just there for transparency, letting in the light and openness - it's a staff safety feature.
That you should not dip in the company ink just goes all around now, you can only have relations with people on your level and preferably you shouldn't even have that. That said there is a lot of dipping going on, which seems like a giant gamble cause if you do the wrong person it could be the end of the careers line for you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @06:06PM
When I was a grad student doing the TA-thing, I do remember the pleas to "Please help me pass this class"; most of the time it was coming from the guys (I'm a guy, BTW). I don't seem to recall the "*wink*wink*nudge*nudge*know*what*I*mean*" part, though. Maybe the gals in my classes were just never quite that desperate? I do, on the other hand, remember one gal who I could sense a budding relationship beginning to form; she was a smart and motivated student. Nothing ever came of it though. Sometimes I wonder just what could have been. *Sigh*
That being said, I do think the policies set forth by universities are prudent and well-intentioned. This is not about stifling your social life or you "being kept in your place" but laying out measures to protect both the student and the university staff; more cynically you might say that this is the university's CYA policy to protect themselves from getting sued. My experience while in academia was that, while they had no intention of interfering with what two adults get up to on their own time, they laid out the rules so that both parties knew what the consequences could be if things suddenly went sideways. If you decided to flout the rules no one was going to go after you; but you also couldn't expect the university to stand by you if you did decide to dance too close to the line concerning the policy. Just my take on it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hartree on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:26PM (4 children)
And the problem of sexual harassment is real.
There is also a problem that it and a number of other subjects are regarded as third rail issues such that the mere accusation of them leads to possible ruining of a career or reputation. Thankfully, when that's the case there's no pattern of behavior and that can help the victim of such.
Perhaps one of the worst problem is that those cases where false accusations are made can lead to real reports of harassment being taken less seriously. And that can lead to a situation where someone with a known pattern of behavior gets away with it for longer.
I don't have a good solution. One injustice is remembered far longer than those times the system worked.
My father was a high school teacher and this was a concern (all three of the above) to him and his peers back to the late 1940s when he started teaching. This is hardly a new problem.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:41PM
Academic employment is like the San Francisco of employment.
Meaning, it's like nothing at all like the real world. This is the only place where Dykes with lowly non-degrees can be heard wasting everybody else's time with their niggling nonsense.
I'd agree that it is a minefield, though. Now college girls sit in the front row wearing skirts or butt-shorts and sleeveless tops, with both of their legs over their desk constantly tossing back and adjusting their hair (to show their armpits) and smelling like french whores, and then they file sexual-harassment suits when they get C's in the class or when the professor holds his gaze for 2 seconds.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:42PM
The policy suggestions of reducing the chance that a student will ever be out of eyesight/earshot with a professor seems like a smart move to me. Do that, and there's independent witnesses to whatever happens.
And I completely agree with your assessment: I distinctly remember the conversations I had with the dean of students at the institution I was working for most recently, and it's sad how much effort is required to ensure professors don't try to sleep with their students.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 14 2017, @12:01PM
I don't have a good solution. One injustice is remembered far longer than those times the system worked.
I do, due process of law and all the other machinery of the legal system. It's still far from perfect, but much better than the current situation in colleges. It's worth remembering here that a number of these sexual harassment cases are based on evidence so flimsy (sometimes even transparently false), it wouldn't have gone near a real court.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @02:42PM
One injustice is remembered far longer than those times the system worked.
One injustice is too much. I'd rather let a hundred guilty men go free than to allow one innocent go to jail, especially when the alleged crimes are petty and the mere accusation (even with a later acquittal) can destroy the career of the accused.
And yes, unwanted sexual advances and even molestation are petty. Save for young children, no mentally healthy person would suffer permanent injury to such offenses.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:35PM (3 children)
But can a university legally ban something in private life of others?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @12:45AM
No -- no legal standing. They can request the relationship not be enacted on-campus but that must logically extend to all relationships. So I doubt they would even get away with that.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Friday April 14 2017, @02:33AM (1 child)
Contractually, yes they can.
You agree to the rules when you sign the employment contract.
You may quibble about rules adopted after you signed on, perhaps.
I signed on as a TA in College and even I had to sign a code of conduct (back in the 70s - of course it was mostly about recreational drugs in those days).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @07:52PM
Employment rules are not legally applicable to your social life.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday April 13 2017, @11:39PM (17 children)
The fundamental problem with a professor-student romantic or sexual relationship is that professors and students are not peers. Particularly if the professor in question is in charge of one of the student's classes, the professor holds power over the students to significantly affect the students' future. And while most professors won't take advantage of that, and I'm sure most people would like to believe that professors would never take advantage of that imbalance, I know for a fact that there are some professors who will. As in, the university I worked for for a while has had cases of professors getting fired for making passes at their students and in some cases penalizing students who refused. And people who I have every reason to trust have told me of experiences of professors making advances at them.
There are obvious alternatives for professors seeking love or sex:
1. Go for one of your peers, i.e. fellow faculty members.
2. Go for somebody not affiliated with your institution. There are a lot of them out there, even near a college town in the middle of nowhere.
Thinking that policies aimed at avoiding sexual abuse are to protect women makes male victims of sexual abuse (and often female abusers) invisible. Claiming that a neutrally worded policy is in fact gendered is a false argument aimed at convincing men to accept inaction in cases of sexual abuse.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Unixnut on Friday April 14 2017, @12:02AM (11 children)
And while most professors won't take advantage of that, and I'm sure most people would like to believe that professors would never take advantage of that imbalance, I know for a fact that there are some professors who will
It is interesting that nobody mentions that students sometimes make passes at their professors, for similar goals. I have first hand experience seeing students attempt to seduce professors in the hope of getting higher grades or the "right" recommendation for their future studies/employment. Other times it was things like threatening to report a sexual assault against a faculty member unless they increased the students grade, or gave them a good recommendation.
Either way, a policy of always having other witnesses is prudent in these situations, precisely because certain people will make use of the imbalance in order to gain unfair advantage.
I don't know what to do about those who really develop feelings for each other despite being in such imbalances of power. That does happen too, and it seems a shame to deny them that which would be allowed to them if it was not for being at the uni at that very same time in different levels of power. However this happens everywhere you get lots of humans, universities, workplaces, government, etc....
I am not sure you can ban relationships between humans any more than you can ban certain sexual acts between humans. If two consenting people really want to get together, all your laws will do is drive them underground, which, in many ways, is a far worse outcome than had the laws not been developed in the first place.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Friday April 14 2017, @12:32AM (9 children)
Here's the difference: The student doesn't have power over the professor. If the professor simply says "no" and leaves the room, especially if there were witnesses, then the student has no way to punish the professor.
You don't have a legal right to bang somebody. You do have a legal right to not be coerced into banging somebody. Hence, the law and organizational policies universally err on the side of no banging. Also, I'm of the school of thought (born out by experience) that says there ain't no such thing as a One True Love, so once the prof gets over it and decides to look for someone else that they don't have coercive power over, they are likely to find a relationship that would be about as fulfilling as the one they didn't pursue.
But, if you do believe in One True Love and there's this power imbalance, the way you solve this problem is you correct the power imbalance, and then make the pass. So in the case of universities, you would wait until the person in question graduates. In the case of business, you get a job in a different company. In the case of government work, you transfer to another department entirely. And so forth.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @12:58AM (3 children)
Wrong, I have a legal right to bang anybody who consents.
Funny, because usually that is the way it works. You meet someone, realise you like them, consider, enact and propose. There's mutual consideration as in a contract. It's mutually agreeable between two parties and none of anybody else's business.
You are presuming bribery, as if being sexually attracted to someone is the pre-crime of rape. You colossal twat!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Friday April 14 2017, @02:00AM (2 children)
Nope, you have the legal privilege to bang somebody who consents. The difference between a right and a privilege is that a privilege can be taken away at any time by somebody else (in this case, the person/people you're banging). For example, if you go into a friend's home, your friend can at any time say "Get out!" and you now have to leave or be guilty of trespassing - being at your friend's home is a privilege, not a right.
Coercion is all about what happens if either party walks away from the negotiation, refusing to engage in any kind of transaction with the other party. In the case of a student refusing a professor, it is reasonable for that student to believe that the repercussions could very well be more than simply missing out on a night of bliss.
Even if only rewards rather than penalties were on the negotiating table, it's still a problem. Consider that if a professor, say, offered to trade a boost in grade from a C to a B in exchange for sexual favors, that puts everyone of the wrong gender to offer said sexual favors at a disadvantage.
Also, I don't know what your personal life is like, but in mine, it definitely doesn't feel like a business negotiation: The only consideration I'm offering in exchange for my good time is their good time.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @12:41PM
No, freedom of association is a right. We have the right to enter into mutual contracts with others, it's how our society functions.
No, they have temporarily extended a legal right for you to be there. They can revoke that right because they have property rights.
No means exactly that, the student in this scenario has a right to say that. The professor has no right to academically penalize the student for rejection.
This is unacceptable and if discovered, the professor should lose their tenure.
And that is a fair and equitable contract is it not? You do understand that marriage was the prototypal form of contract?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @10:02PM
The difference between a right and a privilege is that a privilege can be taken away at any time by somebody else
This is a horribly totalitarian sentiment. Anything can be revoked, including your right to live.
In the case of a student refusing a professor, it is reasonable for that student to believe that the repercussions could very well be more than simply missing out on a night of bliss.
They can do the same thing because they didn't like the student's religious views, political affiliation or their face. Are you also going to address any other circumstance under which a student can receive such treatment? Do you propose we force college kids to wear paper bags over their heads?
Consider that if a professor, say, offered to trade a boost in grade from a C to a B in exchange for sexual favors, that puts everyone of the wrong gender to offer said sexual favors at a disadvantage.
They can already offer them money for the same purpose. I fail to see how this changes the situation, it's already illegal to bribe or take bribes regardless of the nature of the bribe in question, it's not like we can jail/fine/fire the professor twice.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Friday April 14 2017, @04:26AM (1 child)
If the professor simply says "no" and leaves the room, especially if there were witnesses, then the student has no way to punish the professor.
If there *are* witnesses? Easier than ever. The student just confronts the prof out of the blue and loudly says something like this:
Listen, $Profs_Name, you banged me all night and now you are saying that it was nothing? You promised me the grades, and now you are saying nothing happened at all? You are a such an evil man, $Profs_Name, and I will find justice! I will make sure that this night of sex will cost you dearly!
After stating the above, the accuser should remember the witnesses (their names will be instrumental,) cry profusely and leave the scene. Done. Even if the prof can provide an alibi, the accuser risks nothing. Nobody today would dare to move against her. However it is not all that difficult to ensure the lack of the alibi - it only requires, say, finding out where the person lives and observing that he returns home and spends the night at home, alone.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday April 14 2017, @01:37PM
That's precisely what's so frightening about it. No only is proving innocence difficult (and unjust) in general, but the only possible way would be to keep a detailed logbook of one's day on a minute-to-minute basis, every day, on the off chance that one actually is accused of rape (or sexual relations), and just pray and hope that during the time period the rape supposedly happened, there is some way to prove that the supposed victim was somewhere else.
I'll never forget the presentation I was required to attend in college because of my assigned gender. As an assigned male, I'm already guilty of rape—their words as best as I can remember, not paranoia or exaggeration on my part—, and all that needs to happen is for somebody to bring forward “evidence” of the most circumstantial kind.
I'm not even attracted to women, and that presentation had me scared to death about even being in proximity of a cisgendered woman. I admit, though, that I could not have been brought to that extreme of fear without first going to a school district with grossly sexist policies in the first place, particularly group punishments for an entire gender when one boy in the back was misbehaving.
(If only I'd heard of Title IX at the time, there were plenty of incidents from elementary school to that presentation in college that could have led to a slam-dunk lawsuit, alas. Also, I should note that whether or not I'm remember the presentation correctly, it didn't do anything to decrease rapes on that campus, and even many, many moons later, that campus is now apparently having an actual rape crisis, provable by police reports because it was the local police who finally voiced a concern! [Also verified by my psychologist.] It's almost as though the goal of the on-campus rape advocacy group didn't have anything to do with lessening the impact of rape on the campus. Strange thing, that.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @05:22AM (1 child)
Students have no way to punish professors. That's absurdly naive.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @08:09AM
Bring it on, you slut! I have at least a dozen esteemed faculty members who will testify to your attempts to get grades for sex. And I will be obvious to any examiner that that is the only way your could have passed any college level course. So just give it up, Mighty Buzzard! You are never going to matriculate!
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday April 14 2017, @04:35PM
You failed to address this point and the question of whether there is a power imbalance in a legal structure where the professor is denied legal counsel, denied even knowing the charges until being questioned, and where female student's word is accepted as truth even without evidence. Who, in that situation, is the person in power?
Fromt TFA:
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday April 15 2017, @03:31AM
>I don't know what to do about those who really develop feelings for each other despite being in such imbalances of power.
At my alma mater, the policy is that professors cannot be in a relationship with a student attending their class or in the same department. So for example, a math student could have a relationship with a French professor, assuming the math student doesn't take any classes under that professor. The school generally discourages it because it limits the opportunities of the student (for example, the math student wouldn't be able to take a French class even if he was interested), but does not forbid it.
I think it's a very reasonable policy.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @12:49AM (1 child)
The fundamental problem with a relationship between consenting male and female adults is that they are not peers. They both hold power over one another that could affect both of their futures.
I mean, hey, why not go full SJW retard while we're at it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14 2017, @08:17AM
I mean, hey, why not go full SJW retard while we're at it?
Hello! Would you be interested in a full-on alt-right dangerous faggot type relationship? Or perhaps just a one off? Those fucking SJWs, what with their fucking, in consentual egalitarian relationships! Who needs that? Much better to be desperate for sex, but to have absolutely no idea how to convince anyone else to participate, except through commerce, or assault. And this is why the right is absolutely opposed to gay marriage. It will cut into the number of desperate, alienated gay boys, who are available to Republican Senators. Rent-a-Boy, Mr. Republican Senator? Mr. "Wide Stance" in the Minneapolis Airport, Senator? Do you know who I am, and why do you not get me some young guy I am a US Senator, Republican.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Friday April 14 2017, @01:48AM (2 children)
Yeah [ab.edu], sometimes not so much. [photobucket.com]
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday April 14 2017, @02:14AM (1 child)
OK, so using your example, there are about 1,000 students at that college. That means no more than a couple hundred faculty at most. The college in question is in a county with about 16,000 residents, of which 45%, or roughly 7,000, are unmarried. (Yes, I'm assuming the faculty members of a rural area like this likely have access to a car.) Which means the population of single non-college folks is substantially higher than the population of students, and there's about 350 non-college single people per faculty member. So even if we assume that none of the faculty are married, there's at least as good odds they'll find a good connection with a non-college person than with a college person.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Friday April 14 2017, @12:16PM
You've obviously never been to Philippi.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.