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作者：ceo/cfo 在 海归茶馆 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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Forbidden Love: Student-Professor Romances
Barry M. Dank, California State University, Long Beach, and Joseph S. Fulda, New York City
Abstract
This article explores the history, sociology, and dynamics of a contemporary taboo: romances between students and faculty on college campuses. We show how the taboo has fed off unrelated notions such as sexual harassment and pedophilia, with the result that such romances have been pornographized and their participants--students and faculty alike--objectified. We conclude by suggesting that the movement to ban student-faculty romances is fueled by a resentment toward dominant societal age norms regulating dating/mating.
Introduction
A prominent concern--often overshadowing academics--of American universities during the past decade has been dealing with issues surrounding sexual harassment. Generally, universities have developed policies that sanction "unwanted sexual attention" and that prohibit working and, increasingly, learning environments which are held to be "hostile" to women. During this same period, a literature has emerged which has called on universities to expand the definition of sexual harassment to include a ban on intimate relationships between students and faculty. Such a proposal came to the forefront of university attention in 1993 when the Committee on Women's Concerns at the University of Virginia proposed a university-wide ban on all sexual fraternization between undergraduates and professors. This article critiques the intellectual underpinnings of the banning movement and explores the underlying psychosocial dynamics which have propelled the movement forward.
The lens of the law
Central to the proscription of sexual harassment is the principle that women have the right to be protected from unwanted sexual attention in formal organizational settings. In 1986, the U.S. Supreme Court in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson noted that "The unwelcomeness standard has the benefit of allowing claimants to determine subjectively what constitutes offensive behavior. ... Violators will be put on notice that their behavior constitutes harassment" (Hallinan, 1993, p. 452, emphasis added). Meritor in essence elevated "the reasonable woman" into the central position of deciding what constitutes harassment; it is her subjectivity that counts. That the male may not have intended to harass is irrelevant under Meritor. Along with a number of other Federal cases (Hallinan, 1993), Meritor not only put the woman in the position of defining unwanted sexual attention but also in the position of defining what is a "hostile" work environment--even when the woman was not a recipient of sexually harassing or directly hostile behavior. Thus, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found in Broderick v. Ruder (1988) that Catherine Broderick could prevail in her claim of sexual harassment since her co-workers and their supervisors engaged in sexual behavior in such a manner as to lead her to conclude that such behaviors led to unfair promotions and raises, thereby creating a hostile work environment for her (Hallinan, 1993, p. 455).
American universities come under the jurisdiction of this case law via application of title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 which prohibits educational institutions from engaging in sex discrimination, which Meritor held to include sexual harassment. Federal courts have ruled that the "...same standards developed to interpret title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 must be used to decide title IX cases" (Wagner, 1993, p. B1). More recently, the Supreme Court ruled in Franklin v. Gwinnet County Public Schools (1992) that students who had been sexually harassed could sue educational institutions when such institutions were a party to the harassment (Wagner, 1993).
The distorted lens of the feminist banners
Given the above decisions, and their applicability to universities, it would appear safe to conclude that the concept of sexual harassment had been well-defined, and that any remaining work to be done in the university and workplace centered around education and application. Such, however, has not been the case. Starting in the 1980's, a feminist literature emerged calling for the banning of intimate, organizationally based, asymmetrical relationships and the subsumption of such relationships under the rubric of sexual harassment. Thus, when individuals in asymmetrical relationships engage in sexual behavior such a relationship is seen as sexual harassment with the person in the superordinate position viewed as the harasser and the person in the subordinate position as the victim. Louise Fitzgerald provides a representative statement of sexual asymmetry as sexual harassment when she states: "When a formal power differential exists, ALL sexist or sexual behavior is seen as harassment, since the woman is not considered to be in a position to object, resist, or give fully free consent; when no such differential exists, it is the recipient's experience and perception of the behavior as offensive that constitutes the defining factor" (Quoted in Paludi and Barickman, 1991a, p. 7). Or, as Paludi and Barickman put it: "Sexual harassment is an issue of organizational power. Since work (and academic) organizations are defined by vertical stratification and asymmetrical relations between supervisors and subordinates ... individuals can use the power of their position to extort sexual gratification from their subordinates" (Paludi and Barickman, 1991b, p. 151).
As indicated in these statements, the woman's perception of the situation is no longer central. What is central is her organizational position relative to the man. If her organizational position is subordinate and she is involved in an intimate relationship, she is seen as simply incapable of giving fully free consent. Given that consent is precluded in an asymmetric relationship, the banning of such relationships becomes appropriate. Indeed, if such a ban does not exist, the non-prohibiting organizations may become liable for the resulting "sexual harassment."
Although the principles which lead to the prohibition of intimate asymmetrical relationships are applicable to both the workplace and the university, concern has been predominantly within the university; and within the university, concern has overwhelmingly focused on student-faculty relationships. It is in the context of student-faculty relationships that the inapplicability of the concept of consent has been advocated with particular vigor. In 1984 the authors of The Lecherous Professor set the tone of the debate when they spoke of consent in student-faculty relationships as a myth. As they advocate: "Few students are ever, in the strictest sense, consenting adults. A student can never be a genuine equal of a professor insofar as his professional position gives him power over her" (Dziech and Weiner, 1984, p. 74). Or as Sandler succinctly puts it: "Another myth is that of the consenting adult. True consent can occur only between equals, and a relationship does not consist of equals when one party has power over the other" (1990, p.  .
Given the belief that consent is a myth, it follows that a student in a relationship with a professor cannot meaningfully indicate to herself or others whether the professorial attention is welcome or unwelcome. As Wagner has indicated: "The usefulness of the argument that a student consented to a sexual relationship...lost significant ground when the Supreme Court set the title VII standard of forbidden behavior at 'unwelcome'. How many coeds have endured the sexual advances of their teachers out of fear, fascination, or just plain naiveté, but found them 'unwelcome' nonetheless?" (1993, p. B1). And even when a student internally "feels" that the attention is wanted, consent still cannot be given, these writers argue. As student Lori Peters found as a result of her "consensual" relationship with a professor: "My experience with sexual harassment has led me to believe that in the context of power imbalance there is no such thing as consent. Where the power lies so lies the responsibility..." (1989, p. 21) Another way of putting it is that to the feminist banners, the subjective perceptions of the female student are neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition in determining whether sexual harassment has occurred. A professor may propose and a student may accept, but according to this emerging perspective, the professor is still guilty of harassment since the student is in an asymmetrical relationship and is simply incapable of consent. As Fitzgerald has indicated: "...perceptions alone (whether those of observers or victims) are not adequate for a valid definition. Women, after all, are socialized to accept many nonconsensual or even offensive sexual interactions as being nonremarkable" (1990, p. 37). The feminist perspective thus rejects the doctrine of Meritor lock, stock, and barrel. Sexual harassment is defined, not subjectively by the woman, but objectively by what feminists like to call "the power relations."
Contextual vs. categorical bans
Given the belief that consent is an impossibility in student-faculty relationships, the banning of such relationships becomes axiomatic. The issue then is whether the ban should be contextual, i.e. only in the context of a direct supervisory relationship such as exists in the classroom or between dissertation adviser and doctoral candidate, or categorical, i.e., with absolutely no fraternization between students and faculty.
Prior to the 1993 movement for categorical banning, there were a number of universities that formally adopted the principle of asymmetry to discourage or ban intimate relationships when the professor was in a direct supervisory relationship with the student. For example, the policy at Indiana University is representative of contextual banning: "All amorous or sexual relationships between faculty members and students are unacceptable when the faculty member has a professional responsibility for the student. Voluntary consent by the student in such a relationship is suspect, given the fundamental asymmetric nature of the relationship." The Tufts University policy is similar: "It is a violation of university policy if a faculty member ... engages in an amorous dating or sexual relationship with a student whom he/she instructs, evaluates, supervises, advises. Voluntary consent by the student ... is suspect."
The principle of asymmetry as a rationale for bans on student-faculty relationships had been advocated in the early eighties as part of the Harvard University policy on sexual harassment: "Relationships between officers and students are always fundamentally asymmetric in nature." However, attempts by universities during the eighties to formally adopt categorical bans generally failed as reflected by the rejection of such policies by the university faculties at UCLA and the University of Texas, Arlington in 1986 (Keller, 1990, p. 29). It was Ann Lane, Professor of History and Director of Women's Studies and a member of the Committee on Women's Concerns at the University of Virginia, who launched the University of Virginia's campaign for a categorical ban on undergraduate-faculty fraternization and who quickly became the symbolic leader of the movement for such bans at universities across the nation....
作者：ceo/cfo 在 海归茶馆 发贴, 来自【海归网】 http://www.haiguinet.com
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 I am getting a legal bug recently. I am posting an article -- ceo/cfo - (11737 Byte) 2007-1-23 周二, 06:28 (1066 reads)
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