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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, 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.