Navigating Professor-Student Relationships: A Grey Area

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This case is a “he said – she said” situation. It is unclear who initiated the relationship to begin with. Many relationships between professors and students “occur between male faculty members, frequently older and married, and female students” (Lane, 2006, p. 2) such as this one. The professor denying the sexual relationship may or may not have prevented a scandal. The student, if infatuated, may have filed a sexual complaint in retaliation for refusing to have a relationship with her. If the professor had rejected the relationship, he may have thought the student would falsely accuse him of sexual harassment. However, since the relationship did occur, he may not have believed he was doing anything wrong or thought he was “above” the …show more content…

The outcomes of these relationships are varied; some end happy, some end with hurt and shame, not only for the student, but the professor and other stakeholders. Until recently, these relationships were swept under the rug, with administrators looking the other way or the professor resigning in shame only to move on to another university to behave in the same manner. Since 1972, State universities that employ more than 15 employees are no longer exempt now subject to Title VII Civil Rights act of 1964 when hiring and are subject to cases of sexual harassment as well. In this case, a Title IX complaint would ensue. Title IX has been very controversial within academia. Under this act, complaints must be “investigate[d] … promptly through a campus-based process” (Pope, 2014), which are meticulous official processes. The process for investigating the complaints has been scrutinized by “civil liberties groups and the American Association of University Professors” (Pope, 2014) who many professors are members. Stronger ethic training for cases described above may curtail some of these complaints. The faculty and senate committee may not see this as a subject that needs to be covered in the ethics training. Many members of this community feel as if their colleagues would not behave in this manner, therefore, it does not need to be addressed. However, it is obvious that these relationships continue to occur and the two people who are involved are not the only ones who are affected. The university’s, department’s, program’s, student’s and professor’s reputations suffer, valuable time and resources are spent and the outcome typically is a tragic one. Policies prohibiting these relationships need to be enforced. The challenge will be to break the “blue” academic

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