I’m a Davidson Professor of English who’s beginning a new book project concerning professor-on-student sexual harassment or assault, and I’m hoping to speak with victims whose stories I’ll use to address this issue.
On a college campus, students ought to be able to trust their professors. But professor-on-student sexual harassment and assault are pervasive nationwide and arguably more problematic than student-on-student assault, which has recently dominated the news. Davidson College has not been exempt from such coverage. Because of a variety of factors, moreover, victims of professor-on-student incidents are even more reluctant to report such violations than they are violations involving students alone. Like almost every college and university, Davidson has a policy about faculty / student amorous involvement. It reads in part:
Faculty members and staff are prohibited from dating students, asking students for dates, engaging in amorous or sexual activities with students, asking students to engage in amorous or sexual activities, or engaging in any activities designed to encourage or which [do] encourage an amorous or sexual relationship with a student when
1. The student is enrolled in a course being taught by the faculty member; or
2. The student’s academic work, admissions, enrollment, athletic, or other educational participation or programming is being supervised or subject to review in any way by the faculty member or staff.
To analyze this type of violation, to bring the problem more to light, and, finally, to discourage it and contribute to curtailing it, I intend to write a book relating the stories of twelve or so victims of professor-on-student sexual harassment or assault. I believe thousands of victims, both female and male, would welcome the chance to tell their stories, whether they involve heterosexual or same-sex violations and whether they’re recent or in the distant past. If you or someone you know is one of them, please consult my website, http://cynthiaLewis.net, where I’m blogging about this issue, and consider being in touch with me.
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Since the publication of Billie Wright Dziech and Linda Weiner’s excellent book The Lecherous Professor in 1984—30 years ago—discouragingly little has changed. Sexual harassment and sexual assault remain prevalent at universities and colleges, and students who are taken advantage of are reluctant to report violations. Many students don’t even consider themselves harassed, but, instead, see themselves as consenting adults. As they continue to mature into adulthood, however, their view may change; instead of idolizing and idealizing a professor, the student who once felt fortunate to be singled out may interpret the professor’s behavior as inappropriate at best and, at worst, as indefensibly selfish, arrogant, and more about exercising power than about affection, respect, or love.
Harassed students’ mixed feelings and confusion contribute to the severe under-reporting of incidents. I want to tell the stories of individual students who have been sexually harassed or assaulted by professors or perhaps senior staff in various ways and who have handled the violation in a variety of ways. I’m looking for people to interview who have an experience of this kind that they’d be willing to share. I’d be willing to keep the identities of my subjects confidential by using pseudonyms and even masking the institution where the violation occurred. I’m aiming for institutional and geographical breadth, and I hope to include same-sex violations. Nor do I want to confine these stories to recent events, but hope to represent victims whose experiences are long past, but whose trauma remains; such people have also had time to reflect.
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Can a Student “Consent” to a sexual relationship with a professor? The crux of this question is whether one person—a student—with less power than another person—a professor—can consent to a sexual relationship. Today, many people, many of them feminists, would say, “No.” They argue that a person with less power than another can’t truly consent to a relationship in which both people are supposed to have equal power. Other people, some of them feminists, as well, maintain that college-aged women are adults, and to deny them the privilege of consent is to infantilize them and disinherit them of the power they’ve won through the Women’s Movement.
Another factor muddling the question of consent is a student’s crush on a professor or desire to become involved with a professor. When I ran the topic of professor-on-student sexual harassment by a friend of mine, a distinguished second-wave feminist who continues to do good political work in her 80s, she responded, “I remember so well the huge crush one of my best friends had on her chemistry teacher in college. I think she would have been willing to submit to almost anything. Fortunately, the only thing he ever asked her to do was baby sit so he and his wife could go out to dinner. Had he been one to prey on young women, he would have found a willing companion.” Had he been a predator, would the student, as “willing” as she was, have been harassed? For me, the answer is “yes.” In that situation, no matter how enamored she was, it was up to the professor to be an adult and recognize the student’s vulnerability and the relationship’s inappropriateness.
But I think my friend was inwardly mulling over whether a student’s crush on a professor wasn’t a natural occurrence and, by extension, whether a professor’s acting on it wasn’t to be expected. I encountered just that assumption—that sexual involvement between students and those who teach them is simply in the nature of things—several years ago on my campus, Davidson College, when an internationally known acting company was in residence for some three weeks. The members of the company who were acting in plays were considered teachers as much as were the designated educators in the company or regularly appointed faculty members at the college. All of the visitors, to a person, were on campus to teach the students, and they were formally told that, because of their role, they were to abstain from amorous relationships with students. When such relationships cropped up willy nilly, members of my community laughed them off as predictable, impossible to prevent—that is, as an essential part of any academic environment. When I objected to this view, they gently ridiculed me for my prudishness.
Even if a student is love-struck over a professor whose attention she craves, even if she attempts to seduce a professor, does she really know what she’s asking for? Or is that very question objectionable for patronizing students who are, after all, adults and who are at college to learn, sometimes through making mistakes? Faculty-student sexual involvement is a thicket. Untangling it takes time and patience and may not produce clear, absolute answers or ethics. Still, just chopping or slicing through it will only complicate matters all the more. The topic warrants careful scrutiny and analysis.