The old — but not gone — problem of professors dating students.

Here's an Inside Higher Ed article about a sexual harassment case against Northwestern University:

In her suit, the student says that after a night of bar-hopping and coerced drinking, which started as an invitation from [philosophy professor Peter] Ludlow to attend a Chicago art exhibit that she pointed out, Ludlow took her up to his apartment, assaulting her as she faded in and out of consciousness....

Questions of punishment severity – whether anything less than the "death penalty" is appropriate – is one that colleges struggle with, especially where possible assault is involved, said Peter F. Lake, a law professor at Stetson University....

"I think from the outside perspective, there’s sometimes concern that these things are treated lightly,” Lake said, noting that rescinding a chair position is a very serious matter in higher ed that probably doesn’t resonate with the general public. “It becomes even more difficult to assess an appropriate punishment when you’re not entirely sure whether the evidence is overwhelming for one scenario or another, and it would be a real shame to under-punish for a rape because the evidence isn’t as clear as you want it to be."

Meanwhile, the university doesn't have a policy banning "consensual romantic or sexual relationships," but the professor must report relationships to a superior, and there seems to be room to argue over what triggers the reporting requirement. As the lawprof Lake ponders Socratically:

"Is a kiss a relationship? Is one date a relationship? Does it require an intention to continue? Is it a duration issue?"

Relationships are forbidden where the professor has "supervisory or evaluative authority over" the student. In the Northwestern case, the student had taken a course from the professor in the previous semester, a course on the philosophy of cyberspace.

Here's a snippet of a dialogue from last month with Glenn Loury where we talked about professors making sexual contact with students:



I refer to an old article in The Atlantic (or was it Harper's), and I'm trying to find it. It wasn't "The Higher Yearning: Bringing Eros Back to Academe," a 2001 Harper's article written by a woman (Cristina Nehring). I think it was something older, written by a man, making some assertions about a certain type of female student, who greatly benefits from relationship with a professor like him. The article was roundly denounced by feminists of the time.

ADDED: A reader emailed about the article I was trying to remember. It was "New Rules About Sex on Campus" (1993 Harper's), by Professor William Kerrigan. Excerpt:

There is a kind of student I've come across in my career who was working through something that only a professor could help her with. I'm talking about a female student who, for one reason or another, has unnaturally prolonged her virginity.... There have been times when this virginity has been presented to me as something that I... half as an authority figure, can handle — a thing whose preciousness I realize... These relationships exist between adults and can be quite beautiful and genuinely transforming. It's very powerful sexually and psychologically, and because of that power, one can touch a student in a positive way.