The University of Connecticut (UConn) made news on Wednesday by banning sexual relationships between students and faculty.
Here’s the official reason the university gave for this new policy:
The power difference between faculty and staff as compared to students means that any romantic relationship between a faculty or staff member and a student is potentially exploitative or could at any time be perceived as exploitative.
(Hartford Currant, August 7, 2013)
But, evidently, the real reason stems from credible allegations that its music professor, Bob Miller, is a serial child molester. That being the case, one wonders why Penn State did not adopt a similar policy after its assistant football coach, Jerry Sandusky, became infamously embroiled in similar allegations. Not only did Sandusky end up in prison for life, but the NCAA hit the university with a battery of financial and athletic sanctions. In other words, UConn is just trying to cover its ass.
Except that it’s one thing to ban sexual relationships between students and faculty in high school, where students have not reached the age of consent (16-18).
This is why the curious craze of female high-school teachers seducing their students is resulting in so many of those teachers being thrown in the pokey. But even in this high-school context, I reprise this demurrer for your consideration:
Given that 16 is the age of consent in most states (30), I submit that if a teacher (male or female) has consensual sex with any student aged [16] or older, he/she should be fired and banned from teaching for life, but no criminal charges should obtain. However, if that teacher has sex with a student aged [15] or younger, he/she should be arrested and prosecuted on charges of statutory rape and related offenses…
Now, anyone who says that [16]-year-old boys will be psychologically damaged by having their sexual fantasies fulfilled by hot teachers either was never a 16-year-old boy or is just talking puritanical rubbish! After all, with an obliging teacher, no lesson could prove more educational, wholesome and, ultimately, useful for a teenage boy.
(“Sexy Middle-School Teacher Gets Off after Blowing More than Schoolboy’s Mind,” The iPINIONS Journal, March 26, 2006)
Of course, I am sensible enough to not even speculate on what damage (if any) of any kind would be involved with respect to 16-year-old girls in similar relationships….
That said, it’s quite another thing to ban sexual relationships between students and professors at university, where both individuals are deemed to be consenting adults in every respect.
Granted, to avoid any possibility of exploitation or favoritism, no student should be allowed to take a course given by his/her lover. But, beyond this, I dare anyone to provide a single, sustainable reason why sexual relationships between students and faculty at university should not be okay.
After all, that student, then, is not dependent on that professor for any kind of academic evaluation. And this precludes the power dynamic that makes so many worker-boss relationships prohibitive.
Ultimately, if a kid is old enough to decide to go to war for his/her country, surely that kid is old enough to manage a consenting relationship with a university professor … no?
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Teacher gets off…