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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: 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.
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