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....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:
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."
"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.
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70 comments:
Simple. You use the standard the university has set for finding men guilty in the current rape culture crisis. Guilty until proven innocent. Tribunal without representation. And so on. You should reap what you sow.
As long as the student remains a student of the institution, ban any relationship--by which I mean anything more than a professional relationship--between that student and any member of the faculty. If the student can't find anyone to date who isn't in the faculty, or the faculty can't find anyone to date who isn't a student, then they're not trying hard enough.
Think your Sociology professor might be your soul mate? Then date him after you graduate. Soul mates will still be there!
"In the Northwestern case, the student had taken a course from the professor in the previous semester, a course on the philosophy of cyberspace. "
The first rape.
@Brando - So an Assistant Professor in Engineering can't date a grad student in English?
@Brando - So an Assistant Professor in Engineering can't date a grad student in English?
The professor can only date the student if it is a gay relationship.
You missed the big point. Should matters of sexual assault or other crimes be handled by the police or by the university? Universities (at the prodding of the Education Dept) are likely to set up kangaroo courts that trample rights.
A lesser point is what crimes/misdemeanors should cause a private employer fire someone?
"The old — but not gone — problem of professors dating students."
At the elite academic institution I attended several decades ago, at least two smart female graduate students chose to marry young professors, since back then they lacked the consciousness to realize that that was sexual assault.
Since there should be no statute of limitations where rape is concerned, the marriages should be dissolved, and the professors should be prosecuted for having done such a thing.
How about this: we tell students, who are adults, that dating and socializing with professors may lead them into an uncomfortable situation.
And then we let these adults decide what they want to do.
I think that undergrads should be forced to have sex with their professors. What a wonderful preparation for the world of work! It's been tried before.
Why do you and your colleagues want all men to be gay, Althouse?
That is obviously what you want.
I'm assuming that the gay obsession is just the normal expression of the Mandarin class' contempt for the utilitarian sexual preferences of the proles. Historically, that's always been the case.
I love these posts where you fail to notice that your grand plans to throw a monkey wrench into the machine inevitably backfires.
Who, me? is always your answer.
Why don't you cease the high minded social engineering? That might be a good start.
Maybe you aren't so much smarter than generations of humans than you think.
Allow me to muddy the waters further, when one talks of "students" and "professors", one naturally thinks of gray-haired estimables and nineteen-year-olds. I went to college on the GI bill at the ripe old age of 28, and was older than a handful of my professors, certainly more worldly than virtually all of them. Any hard and fast rules may bolster a feeling of righteous morality, but lack the nuance necessary to a very fluid situation.
Hell, in one of my history classes, I had a group partner, a very kind sixty-odd year old woman who was going to school to occupy her retirement. Should she fancy the equally aged dean of the department, I wouldn't classify it in the same area as a true freshman.
Moral of story.
Feminism fucked up everything in order to fix a nonexistent problem. (The real problem was that eggheads liked Althouse needed to rearrange the furniture in order to flatter their egos about their intellects.)
The problems caused by the initial fuckup demand more "solutions" to fix the unintended consequences.
Keeps a lot of rent-seeking lawyers employed. In retrospect, that appears to have been Althouse's primary motivation.
Rule by lawyer, not rule by law, is her objective.
Oddly, before Althouse and her wrecking crew of feminist furniture re-arrangers got hold of the university, students routinely screwed their instructors, with no apparent negative consequences.
I know that I did. Pretty little English TA. She was about 25 and I was 18.
This was in the unenlightened year of 1968. English TAs back then... surprise... still liked macho men and had not yet committed themselves to the great project to turn all men into fags.
Surprisingly, no intervention was needed. No damage done. Life went on.
See how much Althouse has improved things with her schemes to fix everything?
I just love the fact that liberal men are always caught treating women like sexual toys.
Yeah, Feminism!
PB Reader said...
You missed the big point. Should matters of sexual assault or other crimes be handled by the police or by the university? Universities (at the prodding of the Education Dept) are likely to set up kangaroo courts that trample rights.
I agree. Sexual assault and rape are serious crimes. Universities are not qualified to handle such matters. Turn all allegations over to the local legal authorities without exception.
Bob R--I know it's a bit extreme, but that's likely the best policy simply because of the likelihood of improper influence on grades. Even in different departments some faculty members could have influence over others and create some appearance of an unprofessional relationship. Likewise, I think dating co-workers (even with no boss/subordinate relationship) is generally a bad idea.
I'm not saying what the law ought to be, just how I'd run a company or school--somehow, when two consenting adults make a mistake, it seems to always be the employing organization that has to write the checks in the end.
"You missed the big point. Should matters of sexual assault or other crimes be handled by the police or by the university? Universities (at the prodding of the Education Dept) are likely to set up kangaroo courts that trample rights."
The lawsuit is about sexual harassment which is part of the federal statutory law about sex discrimination. It's about equality in the education environment. This is a very different matter from the criminal assaults and rapes that might occur and require prosecution.
If you watch more of that bhtv, I talk about the equality problem. If teachers are using students for their personal sexual gratification and favoring some students over others, that is a problem and it extends beyond a particular student who may have been subjected to a criminal violation.
So that's a "big point" that you need to think about.
I agree and have said many times that if a student is the victim of a crime, he or she should report it to the police. These internal procedures are problematic. But this case is about a lawsuit, not internal procedures.
The internal procedures themselves could violate due process, etc. so the university has a problem. Here, the university is a defendant (along with the professor) in a student's lawsuit.
@Pogo
Of course, you are correct.
And Althouse slides effortlessly into her favorite distraction...
"Let's talk about procedure and legalese."
How about we talk about "you fucked up?" And continue to do so.
You're fucking up again with the gay marriage thing that lawyers imposed on us, Althouse. Big time.
When are you going to stop with the egghead social engineering?
I'm fed up with rule by lawyer.
You are the oppressor, Althouse. Big time.
This does not sound as if the professor was "dating" a student-- he went to an art museum with her, plied her with liquor, then sexually assaulted her.
The professor did not "date" the student. He took advantage of her.
@Martha
I just assuming... only assuming... mind you...
That the young lady held the glass and poured the hootch down her own throat.
when a twenty year old runs one up the may pole with an employer...im outside of a useful opinion limit at 50 so...
The official sexual morality of the modern university is bewildering.
All out orgies and university sponsored sex weekends are good if the admin and feminist ladies are present to supervise and direct traffic.
Individual enterprise in sexual matters must be rigidly policed for potential and actual deviation from the myriad and incomprehensible directives issuing from admin and the feminist ladies.
No wonder men are leaving the university in droves. Why would any sensible hetero man go in debt to reside in the midst of this pigsty?
Let the ladies have the liberal arts colleges. They'll drive it into the ground over time, as they always do. Every institution taken over by women devolves into this kind of hell hole.
Little noticed is that the goose that laid the golden eggs, corporate law, is in the initial stages of its economic deflation... caused by the influx of women.
Does this pass the smell test. Two people go bar hopping together. Coerced drinking? WTF? She could have hopped in a cab at any time to go home.
After a night of "coerced drinking" (can you think about that without laughing?), two very drunk people went up to his place. I wonder what she thought would happen there? Maybe they would look over his etchings? Discuss deep and complex philosophical matters? Play Parcheese?
She says she told him to stop, he says she initiated contact. Classic.
The University has no prohibition against inter-dating. Now the guy's life is ruined, probably because she woke up feeling guilty.
You don't want to have sex? Don't drink until you are blacking out and then go to your date's room.
Rules for thee but not for me:
1. This wasn't a relationship. If her allegations are true, it was sexual assault. But it wasn't treated as such by the school, the alleged perpetrator or the alleged victim, who had (and still has) the option to call the police.
2. The professor was treated very differently than a male student would be treated for identical conduct. This may tell you how unjust the student judiciary procedures are, or how unseriously the school takes allegations against faculty or both.
3. Every workplace, especially a large and diverse workplace, faces difficulty in developing rules and procedures relating to sexual conduct. All workplaces have hierarchies, but academic institutions are unusual in that they have two very distinct categories of participants--faculty (and staff) and students.
4. Despite the separate categories, all or nearly all the persons involved are adults. What is striking and strange about the rules and procedures is that they seem more stringent for the younger, less mature and supposedly less powerful members of the group.
5. Given all these disparities, why do male students not have some kind of similar civil rights complaint against the university for discrimination in regulations and procedures? I am unfamiliar with the ins and outs of the statutes, but someone must be thinking about this. It will be interesting to see how the courts (and the various constituencies) treat that one if and when it arises.
How is this any different than a student on student accusation? And why should it be?
"You missed the big point. Should matters of sexual assault or other crimes be handled by the police or by the university?"
-- I'd be all for getting universities out of policing their students. I've seen far too many instances of favoritism. Let a few police officers arrest some drug dealer, rapist or random drunk vandal and behavior issues at campus would straighten up a lot quicker than "administrative" actions against the chosen pariah.
"The official sexual morality of the modern university is bewildering."
Not really, ST. The official morality of the modern university is feminism. I am not sure whether feminism was invented by women, it seems unlikely. But like women, it holds that the ideal consists always in having it both ways. Master that simple principle and it all becomes clear.
So, what is the feminist attitude to sex? Well, it is, of course, wonderful and liberating, and everyone should have it with everyone else all the time. If you think otherwise, you are a benighted savage who would stifle the joy of life itself. Except, that sometimes, even in small doses, it completely ruins the rest of your life (unlike, say, quadriplegia), and anyone who was around at the time deserves to be flayed over a slow fire. This slow fire right here, for instance.
I should qualify that. The official *sexual* morality of the modern university is feminism, on the grounds that women are the victims of sex (which is wonderful and life-affirming, but kill the baby). On other topics, other victims' ideologies are paramount. And, of course, when one of the new genders is involved, that trumps mere sex. Feminism must stand mute in the face of Queerhood.
Shouting Thomas said...
@Martha
I just assuming... only assuming... mind you...
That the young lady held the glass and poured the hootch down her own throat.
Totally agree with Shouting Thomas. The student bears some responsibility. My point is that a one night stand, albeit with a professor, is not "dating". It is not an ongoing relationship. And even in my dating years a million years ago we knew that going with a man-- even a professor-- to his apartment late at night would most definitely lead to sex. That was in the seventies.
Damn it, in after the scoldpost. Oh well. Bottom line here is that liberal academia gets to lay in the bed it made. My father was a professor when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s. I can assure you that sleeping with co-eds was considered a perk of the job. It worked for the gay professors just fine and the women professors(ahem, Ann) as well. Goodness, Albert Goldbarth wrote a fucking poem describing the glaze of a co-ed on his own cock. That is celebration, right there, folks. So what happened? Well. Progress made it necessary to demonize the normal behavior of adult males with regard to sexually mature young women. Opprobrium for the behavior became manifest. Gay and lesbian professors caught some of the fallout. Heterosexual women? No, because, duh! Did the behavior stop? Well, no. People became more discreet. For the most part.
It is sure as hell still game on at the University of Texas. Bev Kearney, our African-American lesbian track coach (ooh, triple diversity points), got busted boinking one of her athletes. Nasty lawsuit ensures. Then it turned out that Major Applewhite, former darling QB and football coach had done his own boinking (hetero) as had others in the football organization. Can anyone suppose this is limited to athletics? It is not.
So here we are. No doesn't mean yes and yes doesn't mean anal. Yes doesn't even mean yes anymore, short of some elaborate consent ritual that means the approval of the Gender Studies Department (and no cis-normative bias allowed, motherfuckers) and the Diversity Dean.
So, academics, ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Suffer.
Simple rule of thumb for the professors: don't shit where you eat. Banging students is a no-no. No different than a boss banging a secretary in the real world.
The professor did not "date" the student. He took advantage of her.
Maybe. Maybe not. Assertions in a lawsuit aren't known facts.
The litigant may just see a cash cow to be milked with a false sexual assault allegation and a lawsuit, after having drunken sex she regretted after becoming sober.
after a night of bar hopping and forced drinking with a professor after attending an art exhibit...
That's where her story goes soft and suspect.
Forced, huh? He held her mouth open and poured the booze into her, in bar after bar, did he? And she had no control over her whereabouts and lifting the booze to her lips at any time, did she?
Mmhmm.
I smell an attempt to play the "Frail and Fragile female", card, for money.
We don't really know, now, do we?
@ Oso Negro
Well said!!!
I think by forced, she means peer pressured. Which, is OK colloquially, but I'd never use it in this context, when a person's reputation and liberty are on the line.
Well, it is, of course, wonderful and liberating, and everyone should have it with everyone else all the time. If you think otherwise, you are a benighted savage who would stifle the joy of life itself.
Only for the sex acts of LGBTOMFGBBQ people.
Except, that sometimes, even in small doses, it completely ruins the rest of your life (unlike, say, quadriplegia), and anyone who was around at the time deserves to be flayed over a slow fire. This slow fire right here, for instance.
Only when the sex acts are with heterosexual males.
And Womyn are Powerful, Empowered, strong, POWERFULLLY EMPOWERED GRRRRRRRRLz who CAN DO ANYTHING THEY WANT, THEY ARE SO STRONG!!
But not when a heterosexual man kisses them, and ESPECIALLY not if they've had some drinks with a hetero-man, then they melt like ice cream bars on a hot summer sidewalk and are no longer intellectually capable of standing up for themselves.
For college women's safety, the female drinking age must be raised.
Ita Northwestern cannot treat amale teacher differently than a male student. Toss him overboard.
Feminism is a sexist supremacy movement of leftist women.
Feminism is a fucked up mess.
Our fathers and grandfathers were right in their observations and attitudes about women. There wasn't anything to fix.
Althouse fucked up big time with this shit, and she's doing it all over again with her gay worship.
Only a really clever intellectual could be this dense.
5. Given all these disparities, why do male students not have some kind of similar civil rights complaint against the university for discrimination in regulations and procedures?
Because the left marched through the law schools and normalized interpretations of equality that omit those they consider second class citizens.
"The professor did not "date" the student. He took advantage of her."
HER lawsuit says that the encounter began when he invited her to an art exhibit. That progressed to bar-hopping. How is that not a date? He later invited her up to his apartment, and she went along. I don't think she's saying that he forced her to do any of those things, only that she did not consent to actions he took after they were in the apartment.
Don't infantilize the adult woman. She was entitled to say no at any point, and she alleges that she did, but that point begins long into an encounter that is a date.
Do you want to state that whenever a professor asks a student on a date, even if she wants to go, he is taking advantage of her? If so, maybe the university needs a different policy. To me, the problem isn't that he's taking advantage at that point, but that there's inequality in the educational opportunities available to all of the students.
The adult woman infantilized herself.
Can a woman consent to sex if a woman has been drinking?
Universities have decided no.
Amy Alkon post via Insty yesterday.
She was legal but an under-aged drinker?
If so, maybe the university needs a different policy.
The university needs to have no policy at all.
Let the ambulance chasing lawyers and the self-aggrandizing admins find a new way to make money and expand their fiefdoms.
You don't want to have sex? Don't drink until you are blacking out and then go to your date's room.
Bears repeating.
At some point you take responsibility for your own actions, and don't hide behind the I was soooo drunk facade.
Similarly, if you are a professor, you don't buy drinks for one student. If your soul mate (I'm eye-rolling as I type that) is in the class you teach, your soul can wait 'til they graduate. Stop trying to be the cool professor that the students like, and teach them what they've signed up to learn only.
Having sex with a professor is an educational opportunity?
"Do you want to state that whenever a professor asks a student on a date, even if she wants to go, he is taking advantage of her? If so, maybe the university needs a different policy. To me, the problem isn't that he's taking advantage at that point, but that there's inequality in the educational opportunities available to all of the students."
I remember seeing a movie where a female student attempts to get a professor to increase her grade for some reason. He refuses. Later they run into each other at a party, she basically says, "no hard feelings, lets have sex." The idiot falls for it and, of course, she accuses him of rape.
Granted, this is from a movie. But given the apparent disregard of the need for actual proof and the automatic acceptance of the woman's word over the man's, is it really that far fetched?
The situation on college campuses these days seem so oppressive towards men it seems likely that the more intelligent males are forgoing sex with the coeds and are likely looking elsewhere.
The discussion in the Althouse post and in the comments about male-female/professor/student relations, feminism, rape culture, and how despicable lawyers are, is interesting, but I have nothing to add to it.
I do, however, want to point out that you have two very different versions of the facts of the encounter in the prof's apartment. The moral, political, and legal implications of the story depend an awful lot on which version you decide to believe. And the truth is, we weren't there, and we don't know.
Feminism is a political venereal disease.
I thought Requiem for a Dream already covered the issue of professors dating students.
"Coerced drinking?" Is there a legal definiion of that?
And Prof. Althouse should know by now that feminism as a political movement gave up objections to "inequality" in workplace sexual relationships -- the line with intern Lewinsky was "they are both consenting adults," remember? And feminism is all about objective, consistent standards and principles, of course.
1) Do NOT initiate any romantic contact with one of your students.
2) Do NOT respond to any romantic contact from one of your students.
3) Do NOT initiate any romantic contact with one of your former students.
4) Think very carefully before responding to any romantic contact from one of your former students.
Of course, that only applies to hetero male profs. Everything else is A-OK.
Students tried to stage a protest but he cancelled class. (So he's a wuss?)
She "was a freshman" at the time of the alleged incident, so too young to drink. They were also both drunk and one of them was driving, so there's that.
The University found that he had violated their sexual harassment policies. They did take disciplinary action of some kind. She's not suing the University, but the man.
The "depends on what the meaning of relationship is" parsing is a bit lame in this particular case, but that's a tangential line of questioning from the article.
Anyway, I think you'll see more and more of these as the helicopter parent generation hits campuses.
Most upper middle class kids, the college pool, male and female, ARE infantilized today. You can cry about it as a professor trying to Live the Dream, but it's a reality that will have consequences. Maybe you'll win the case, but do you really want to go through it? Wisdom says "no" and this guy is apparently no badass.
Also from somewhere in the comments: "coed" is an incredibly archaic term, somewhat akin to "unwed mother." It doesn't even make sense anymore and arguably has vague, old-timey, sexual connotations in an of itself.
Are incoming students made as aware of the sexual harassment policy as the professors, in advance? They should be.
Also, much like the idea that 18-yr-olds who can die for their country should be able to drink legally, if someone cannot drink legally, for better or worse, the nation has already decided that they are not coherent enough to make personal decisions of any weight while drinking.
At one university I attended, a "precrime" problem arose when a candidate for a teaching position visited campus, gave a lecture, got interviewed, went to a student party, slept with a student, got hired, then had that student in a class his first semester here.
It was to laugh, I tell ya.
"And Prof. Althouse should know by now that feminism as a political movement gave up objections to "inequality" in workplace sexual relationships -- the line with intern Lewinsky was "they are both consenting adults," remember? And feminism is all about objective, consistent standards and principles, of course."
It has been my consistent position that Democratic partisans gave up feminism at that point. Feminism remained. It was abandoned by various hacks who saw it as secondary to party politics. I have had contempt for that behavior all along.
""Coerced drinking?" Is there a legal definiion of that?"
I think that's her phrase, and if it is, it undercuts her later assertions about what happened in the apartment.
The president of Columbia University is married to a former law student of his from Michigan, but they had the good sense to wait until after she graduated to get married (he was still a professor at Michigan then). Far as I know, they are still happily married.
Human nature baby.....
Oh wait. If I say this as a University President, I would have to immediately apologize.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2569426/University-Iowa-president-forced-apologize-saying-sexual-assaults-human-nature.html
We're in a rabbit hole here folks.
At my University, it is, to the Central Administration, a capital offense. In my 40 years, I've seen 3 colleagues "disappear" before sundown, literally. No one ever saw them again.
The one professor who requested a Faculty Board probably would have been retained (case involved mature woman who came and testified the relationship was totally consensual and complained that the U was meddling in her private life), but he took a buy out.
I remember being a teenager and hanging out at a friend's house. His dad was a professor. Someone got curious.
"Dude, what's with your stepmom? Why is she so young."
"She was one of my dad's students."
Not Requiem for a Dream. What was it? It was a movie that consisted of, I think, four vignettes. One was about a student with a not nice professor.
"How about this: we tell students, who are adults, that dating and socializing with professors may lead them into an uncomfortable situation.
Perhaps students should be adults, but often they are not.
And that's why there's this murkiness: sometimes they're considered adults, and sometimes not.
Nonetheless, suing the college because it didn't convene a kangaroo court for you stinks.
If you think you were the victim of criminal behavior then talk to police about it.
Re: I think that undergrads should be forced to have sex with their professors
Hey, if it worked for Plato and Aristotle.....
Re: As long as the student remains a student of the institution, ban any relationship--by which I mean anything more than a professional relationship--between that student and any member of the faculty
What happens if the student drops out and gets a job at the coffee shop? (Or goes to the community college across town)?
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