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<p>No, you’re not the only one but this was 1983. Times have changed and colleges don’t tolerate it anymore. If this had happened recently I’d be more upset.</p>
<p>I think we should be careful not to demonize sex and attractive. It is always best for a person in authority to say, “this is unethical. I can’t pursue it.” That made me pretty mad when I was in love with one of my professors who professed the same feelings but said it was completely unethical to act on it. I recognize that he took the high road and was responsible.</p>
<p>But I think there should be a tiny bit of wiggle room for folks who actually do fall in love in this situation and marry and spend their lives together.</p>
<p>We can’t separate out the academic ramifications for the favored one (or for the others for that matter) so it would be hard to approve, but in many, many contexts older men and younger women are the rule not the exception, and when folks meet each other, regardless of how they do, some are likely to get together.</p>
<p>That in no way excuses the egregious abuse of power that can go on.</p>
<p>The ethical and only acceptable approach is to wait until the end of the class. After all, a semester is only 15 weeks. </p>
<p>My experiences had to do with “my maverick intelligence” as one prof but it. I was discriminated against because they just didn’t want a sexually attractive woman having ideas that interested them. I doubt if it would have been that different had I had actual relationships with them. They probably would have tried to block my work all the same.</p>
<p>So I guess I experiences were more gender discrimination than sexually harassment, though that was thrown in too. It just didn’t bother me as much.</p>
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<p>spit-take. :D</p>
<p>Or a transcript.</p>
<p>Hunt, is there a link to any action that Yale has taken against the undergrads who went chanting No means Yes, Yes means anal? Isnt that inciting rape? Does anyone care?</p>
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<p>As soon as college students are allowed legal representation in their dealings with these academic institutions to the same degree that they are allowed legal representation (like the rest of life) in the outside world, then okay. But, as long as schools continue to consult with attorneys themselves while denying students access, they are taking on a role which absolutely requires they provide an environment which is devoid of any kind of criminal or harrassing behavior on the part of the faculty. It becomes their obligation the day they deny the students legal representation. </p>
<p>If they want to play by the same rules that corporate america or tech america or wallmart america play by? Then, they gotta play by ALL those same rules. But they don’t get to have it both ways. As much as they seem to want to.</p>
<p>Obviously the DOJ is looking into the atmosphere at Yale. As they say, these kinds of issues usually start at the top.</p>
<p>cpt (and others): With “the Yale lech”, you all are missing the key nuance. There was (or would have been) no difficulty with proof. No one set a trap for him, because no one wanted to set a trap for him. No one wanted him fired – at least no one among the women he harassed. That included Naomi Wolf at the time, although she changed her mind later. They were all English students; he was a great, if creepy and messed up, English professor. No one wanted him to go away, they just didn’t want to sleep with him, or have him pawing them (or, more realistically, calling them in the middle of the night and whining about his wife to them). Setting a trap for him would have been shooting fish in a barrel.</p>
<p>In retrospect, I would bet the desire not to force Harold Bloom to resign distorted Yale’s attitude towards sexual harassment for 20 years.</p>
<p>No one is saying that what Naomi Wolf had to put up with is acceptable. But I am saying that it wasn’t the end of the world to ask her to say “no” politely, if that ended it (as it did). Is that asking the minority to bear some cost for the sake of the common good? Yes, it is. I think, if we are being honest with ourselves, that we do that fairly often.</p>
<p>As I indicated, I agree with JHS on some points. Some of it is a tempest in teapot. When someone can take a polite no, no harm no foul. When it goes beyond that…are when the problems begin.</p>
<p>Joseph Campbell and James Watson married students, for two off the top of my head. I’m sure the list is legion.</p>
<p>I was at a party where Jan Kott was kanoodling with a very young woman. He was. like Bloom, completely unattractive.</p>
<p>A young child asked, “Mommy, what is that girl doing kissing that toilet bowl brush?”</p>
<p>It was one of the funniest things I ever heard, and reminds me that in the Middle Ages the favored way to deal with the Devil was to make fun of him.</p>
<p>Yale bans all sexual/romantic relationships between faculty and undergrads. That is a new policy, adopted last year. </p>
<p>For at least a dozen years…if not more, Yale banned all relationships between students and faculty who taught them, advised them, etc. That’s the policy most schools have. </p>
<p>I’m not an alum. There was an article in the NY Times Sunday Magazine a few years back about Naomi Wolf and her accusations about Bloom. I read it.</p>
<p>PS. I can’t find it on google news, so maybe I’m wrong about the source. It was however after the NY Magazine article and it attempted a nuanced review of her claims.</p>
<p>I suspect Bloom behaved inappropriately, but some of the stuff Wolf has written brings her credibility into question.</p>
<p>Coercion is just not OK, especially when it is done by people in positions of power over the student. I applaud Naomi Wolf for a) trying to push Yale on this; and b) going public when they didn’t seem to evince any interest in even talking with her about the problem. </p>
<p>I began my career as a professor at a professional school and in my first couple of years taught a required, quantitative course that was very challenging to those with humanities backgrounds – and the humanities majors are disproportionately female. There was a forced curve, so that a minimum number of students had to get bad (failing) grades and with enough bad grades, would be asked to leave. I was deeply concerned that all of my students learn the material and made myself available to help. In my first year, my age was the median age of my students. I can’t tell you how many times female students, usually those doing poorly, came in worried about their grades, leaning breathlessly across the table with a couple of extra buttons unbuttoned. Some were genuinely lovely, attractive young women, whom I would have been delighted to go out with under other circumstances. There was at least one, and one in particular, who sent the signals of wanting to marry me (and she later married another, much older professor). A few were a little more calculating and wondered aloud if there was anything they could do to improve their grades. I’m not joking here and as a typical male, I probably missed lots of cues but these were so heavy-handed that even I could pick up on them.</p>
<p>Even in the 80’s, there was a lot of concern at this elite institution about sexual harassment and word of professors being forced out as a result. I took to keeping my office door open and having my secretary drop by periodically if I had a female student in the office, because I feared that a “he said, she said” situation would be bad for me even if I were totally exonerated.</p>
<p>A few conclusions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I don’t want in any way to excuse Harold Bloom or his ilk. Coercion is not OK.</p></li>
<li><p>My own experience suggests that things are sometimes more complicated. The school I taught at has an authoritarian style of teaching – the professor walks in and grills individual students, often showing the flaws in their logic in ways that are embarrassing to the students. Something about that setup causes students to have strong attraction to their professors, but the attraction is largely due to the infantilization of the students and the authority of the professors. [I’m not a psychologist but could definitely feel this happening]. I was told (by a second year female student) in my first year of teaching that half the girls in my class had a crush on me. That never happened when I was a student, so I think we can safely assume that it had to do with the role and not the person. A male friend who is a professor there married a student. She told us over dinner that she thought, “He’s cute. I wonder how I can get him interested in me.” She started going in for lots of help (she didn’t mention unbuttoning buttons, but hey, who knows). I think they waited to go out until she graduated (though I’m not entirely sure), but it requires a lot of restraint and the expressions of interest are not all one-sided.</p></li>
<li><p>Other universities may not have the same attitude as Yale did and perhaps does. I am confident that the policies announced by my school (and the rumored departure of a couple of people) certainly deterred me (and other young colleagues) from avoiding situations in which we could be accused of sexual harassment. Punishment of a few miscreants will deter bad behavior by lots of other folks.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I have not the slightest doubt that every word of what shawbridge says is true. I observed women (and a couple men) during my career who used their sexual favors as currency to advance themselves in the workplace. (I also observed other cases of true reciprocal relationships which blossomed in the workplace and proceeded to marriage.)</p>
<p>As several have mentioned, an offer can be proffered, and it can be accepted or declined. If it is declined and no future negative effect occurs, a woman is sometimes wise to consider this simply part of life’s normal negotiations. However, we are talking about situations where there is an inherent power imbalance. Therefore, it is morally incumbent on the more powerful person not to misuse that power by soliciting or accepting favors (sexual or otherwise) that could influence their actions or appear to influence their actions.</p>
<p>So, yes, if a college student gets pawed by a creepy drunk professor, she might be wise to just decline his offer and move on. However, what about the next girl he hits on? Can we prove her grade didn’t drop because of it? No recommendation letter? Sorry, this is unacceptable behavior by a professor towards his (or her) students.</p>
<p>I am curious about the extension of the policy toward faculty and students who do NOT have classes together. Anyone know about that?</p>
<p>I think the extension was a prophylactic thing, and reflects the view that there simply isn’t room for professor-undergraduate sex. Some of that is really paternalistic – we don’t really trust undergraduates to manage their emotional lives (and that is a constant theme of this forum). Some of it is realistic – undergraduates and their parents are really likely to sue and to complain a lot. And some of it recognizes that just because someone isn’t grading your papers this semester doesn’t mean that your relationship with him doesn’t affect your relationship with his colleagues (friends and enemies) who ARE grading your papers or writing your letters of recommendation. There’s a complex emotional ecology that the “supervisory” test willfully ignores.</p>
<p>I am amused at how everyone is willing to respect the “true romances” that blossom into stable marriages. (Which happened to a friend of mine in law school by the way. She married our Contracts professor, who was two years her junior in age and the equivalent of a decade or more in “amorous” experience. The power differential there was not simple, to say the least. When the relationship got serious, he took a two-year leave of absence, and didn’t return until after she had graduated.) What about two-month flings? Really great one-night stands? Absent coercion, the parties don’t have to get married to make it OK.</p>
<p>(“Absent coercion” = putting the rabbit into the hat, of course. Maybe even putting the Easter Bunny into the hat. It’s perfectly arguable that there is never an “absent coercion” in this context. And in many other contexts as well, unfortunately.)</p>
<p>There’s a lot of middle-aged (or older) male fantasy apparent on this thread. :p</p>
<p>Let’s head on over to the college life section and find out the percentage of female students who would welcome fending off sexual advances from men in their 40’s and 50’s and beyond. Gravity alone, barring great wealth, makes these men less than ideal sexual partners.</p>
<p>But, dream on, guys. Dream on.</p>
<p>I agree with mythmom. There are plenty of ways that professors and other authority figures can be unethical jerks that are much more damaging than making a pass at someone. </p>
<p>The other point is that the targets do have a certain amount of control over how things turn out. A confident, polite, no will often nip things in the bud. I know of one case where a grad student was just too “respectful” of the authority figure to object until it got out of hand, then she reported it. I don’t know what happened to the perpetrator–perhaps a reprimand–but he did not lose his job, while she did lose hers (She was supposed to be his TA that semester.) Another case of too much “respect” for authority, was the teenager who was employed at McDonalds where someone claiming to be a police officer called the manager and instructed him to strip search the girl and worse. Both of them just went along with it. </p>
<p>Anyway, this is something we should talk to our children about. There are jerks in the world, and I think a student who realizes this is better prepared to fend off inappropriate behavior, and will be less traumatized if something does happen, than a student who expects rules and other authority figures to always protect them.</p>
<p>Some very good points being made. I wondered if someone would call me on my statement about relationships that blossomed into marriage. I still disapprove if it involves a supervisor and subordinate. However, at least there is a reasonable assumption that both parties were equally sincere and committed if they marry.</p>
<p>And for what it is worth, I had a blazing love affair with a professor when I was an undergraduate. I was not in any of his classes.</p>
<p>Let me clarify that when I say the girls are not interested in the creepy OLDER professors, and I can promise you, for the most part they are NOT, it in no way means that they are not interested in the younger professors in their late 20s and early 30s.</p>
<p>So, I’m not trying to invalidate Shawbridge’s story, which makes sense to me, as the mother of a 20 year old who found her bio TA quite appealing last year, but who has complained about a couple of older professors not realizing they are “older than my dad, which is really gross.” End quote.</p>
<p>Yes, poetgrl, you are spot-on. When I hear my teenage nieces talk about creepy old guys I always get a chuckle when I realize they are talking about 40-somethings. And while many confident young women of today could skillfully deflect the advances of an older authority figure, we must consider those young ladies who would be frightened, confused, and shaken by such a confrontation.</p>
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Sure, people care. But that case is complicated. First, the action complained about was speech. It was not directed at any individual. That makes it difficult to punish it, gross as it was. Second, DKE is not a Yale-sponsored organization. Yale can’t punish DKE. DKE’s national organization put it on probation and suspended its rush activities as are result of this, but not for very long. They didn’t lose a year of pledges. What Yale did was condemn the action, sponsor discussions, etc., etc., etc.</p>
<p>But if you were Yale, what punishment would you mete out to the boys who did this? And how would you distinguish this from other forms of speech and statements that others on campus found offensive and didn’t like? It’s extraordinarily difficult to, at the same time, protect the idea of free speech and free discourse on a university campus, and also punish forms of speech that are disfavored.</p>
<p>What would happen to a bunch of white guys running around the campus slurring african americans?</p>
<p>Do you think you could use the N word and not have repercussions?</p>
<p>I think this why it is interesting to view it as a civil rights issue, maybe. Just a thought.</p>
<p>“If you would like to kick him where it counts, it would be alright.”</p>
<p>A proportional application of physical force in response to the unwanted touching is defensible. Getting the institution in put in place adequate prodedures to protect the academic careers of the women who stand up for themselves, is another matter.</p>
<p>oh my god, Naomi Wolf invited the known campus lech over to her apartment for a candlelit dinner, drank alcohol with him (Bloom apparently drank heavily) and was surprised when his hand drifted over to her thigh?? Give me a break.</p>