<p>I am not quite understanding Naomi Wolf’s trauma. She knew what Bloom was capable of, didn’t she? If so, why was she so shocked as if she thought he was a celibating angel?</p>
<p>Futurecollgemom - Isn’t that weird that she also threw up? How do you throw up after something you knew all along happens?</p>
<p>The issue when Wolf wrote was whether Yale had instituted policies regarding professors hitting on students under their supervision and whether the culture of ignoring possibly coercive activities had changed.</p>
<p>Her reaction, trauma, etc. is atmosphere, IMO.</p>
<p>Wolf did discuss allegedly coercive actions involving other women. It could also be asserted that the power differential makes a persistent come-on inherently coercive.</p>
<p>Well, it seems he invited himself over, actually.</p>
<p>However, the point of the article is not what happened to Wolf back in 83, the point of the article is that Yale was asking her to get involved as an alumna, and after they’d assigned someone to actively recruit her, she tried to get some answers as to their policies and could not. The issue is that even in 2004, the school was most worried about a lawsuit and could not/would not/ answer her questions. How strange you would see that as “her fault.”</p>
<p>All I can say is I have three daughters who are nowhere near smart enough to ever get accepted to Yale, but I sincerely hope they are never this stupid.</p>
I absolutely knew a handful of fellow students throwing themselves at their professors both as an undergrad and as a grad student. </p>
<p>I’ve got very mixed feelings on all of this. Absolutely there has to be a prohibition against relationships with students in your classes and probably against students who could be in your classes, but aren’t right now. But I also know of plenty of happy marriages that developed from these relationships including one from a teacher and a high school student. :eek: which I really think is beyond the pale.</p>
<p>Hey, it used to be that ALL marriages were coercive, or at least began that way. In some of the world, they still are. So why should it (a) surprise us (b) justify anything to learn that a number of happy marriages have resulted from coercive situations? I know I am kind of a “dove” on sexual harassment, but I don’t think shooting at random becomes any less dangerous because once in awhile someone hits an appropriate target.</p>
<p>I do think it’s next-to-impossible to squeeze all of the sexuality out of what are supposed to be adult relationships (even if they aren’t, really), and that it isn’t necessarily an appropriate goal to have a squeaky-clean educational environment in college. Most students don’t need it, and you would lose some talented scholars. I also think it shouldn’t be an atmosphere of “anything goes”. There should be some real social opprobrium for teachers who hit on students, especially if they do it regularly, and processes available to protect students if implicit coercion slops over the line into actual coercion and retaliation.</p>
<p>I have read this thread after reading the thread started by the OP whose daughter (FR) is having a love affair with her English instructor.
A couple of points:
I think Naomi Wolf is onto something a little different. She is talking about PROCESS and CONSEQUENCES and ENFORCEMENT (not about the legality or ethics of these unfortunate events or redress of her personal experience.) The link to the Yale Title IX case to me would be that the Feds are now looking more carefully at how colleges are defining, responding to, handling, communicating about, and very importantly, transparently creating and utilizing fair processes for complaints related to gender equity on college campuses.
NM’S point is that an environment is not truly fair unless there is a safe way for complaints to be made and investigated, safe for both the accuser and the accusee.
Of note, I did not read much in any of these policies of the CONSEQUENCES to infractions of these (varying) policies at universities and colleges.
This has become a civil rights issue.
And a federal issue.
And an issue about the current state of independent/private self-governace by universities and colleges.
Did anyone notice the date of publication of the article? I thought I saw it was in 2004. If so, it is out of date. As stated in several posts in this thread and the other, in 2010 Yale instituted the most strict rules about student-teacher amorous/sexual relationships: prohibited under any circumstances. (This is very interesting and I wonder why.)
I also wonder how well this is enforced, what the consequences are, what the due process inside the university is, and whether the student know how all this works. I think I read that a student must go all the way to t he Dean of Students to complain/initiate some action. Perhaps this is appropriately intimidating in an effort to prevent spurious claims; perhaps it is too intimidating…
Privacy: All honor systems attempt to preserve privacy of both the accuser and the accused until the matter is ruled on, and perhaps forever. The forever part is worrying in that it seems to protect the institution and minimize the consequences, and perhaps the potential for prevention of future occurrences, which is one goal of enforcement.
Involvement of US Federal government and professional lawyers: this seems to be the next trend, perhaps because the Unis have not done a proper job handing these situations inside and as per their own systems. It is interesting to note that colleges and universities seem to operate with their own laws (or no laws??) in regard to other acts: illegal drinking, taking and dealing drugs, rape, stealing, etc. I am no lawyer, so I do not know what the university constitutes as a legal identity, but I think we are about to see some really hard questions about all this.
Yale: Frankly, I think Yale’s involvement in these milestone and highly-publicized cases may not be so much because their sexual harassment environment is particularly worse than that of other colleges. Ironically, I think it is because Yale does select for confident and passionate students who speak their minds, that the atmosphere of intellectual inquiry and honesty actually encourages students to speak out.
I feel that all other colleges and universities are dealing with these problems, but that Yale is basically the leader in change, at the risk of being tarred with a reputation for having it worse.
Title IX: my understanding is that this ruling is in place to connect the enforcement of Federally mandated conditions of gender equality to funding from the Federal government. Is this correct?</p>
<p>Watch this case. It will be important for ALLLLLL colleges and universities.</p>