My various girlfriends and wife have all touched my genitals without my consent, as I have theirs, with the exception of a couple who told me they were uncomfortable by such behavior, at which point I ceased. As I read the article, a boyfriend touched a girlfriend in ways she never objected to. The only time she objected was when she found out he was dating someone else, after their relationship was over. None of that seems to have been counter to the policy cited as reading for the firing.
Comparing his behavior to that of a child molester is the kind of over the top nonsensical behavior Mr Beschizza decries often.
Indeed, I thought about that, and how it would complicate things. Certainly, I don’t think those rules are bad, and probably a good policy for the school to have to avoid these kinds of problems. One would hope that either the student or professor or both would avoid the conflict of interest (much less the awkwardness) of mixing a sexual relationship with a professional/educational one.
This professor was a person in dominant position who should have known better. I’m not discussing the relative enjoyment of coitus amongst consensual adults, I’m just saying that maybe screwing kids at your college will make me less likely to send my girl there.
He was an assistant professor she had at one point. Read the actual article, read my comments. The courts have said that he didn’t break any of the guidelines in place by the administration for how to deal with a relationship between students and professors, which means that if it went before a judge evidence was actually presented.
And I love how even when defending your statements, you still continue to treat adults like children. The subtext might as well be the text.
I agree. I’m not complaining about the assistant professor. The demon is in the guidelines, and I still will not be voluntarily sending my girls there if that is the bar they set for their conduct. That is, unless my kiddos really want to go to Bloomsburg University, in which case I will allow them to and also acknowledge my failure as a STEAM dad.
Yes – to an extent – because he was still in a position of authority and power over them, as faculty at their school. The cases are comparable because they share the same dynamic of sexually-predatory educators and an institutional failure to protect students.
The arbitrator and the judge, while ruling in his favor, described his behavior as reprehensible and exploitative. The “rich, wonderful world of sexual intimacy” indeed.
Criticizing or firing a professor for banging students does not “deny women their agency” or treat them as children. You could apply the same arguments to any workplace power dynamic involving vulnerable adults and powerful men and anyone can see where it ends up.
Don’t fuck your students, even if you can lawyer your way out of it.
I think this argument is complete horse-shit. These are legally adult women, not 12 year olds. Adult women have agency and are not victims simply because they have sexual relations with other older than 18 people. They made a choice and I assume they had some idea of the “power” relationship between themselves and the instructor. What this line of reasoning seems to demand is that the female age of consent should be what: 30? 40? 50?
They may or may not have thought, due to a number of reasons, that they made a bad choice, or maybe not; maybe they’re just caught up in the seemingly popular idea in some corners that sexual contact for women involves involuntary submission.
You know – all kidding aside – there’s this scenario: You’re of age, you get clear yet unproveable ‘signals’ that the prof would only grade you fairly if you slept with him/her… and you do so because you’re in a vulnerable position (powerless student, working toward the career you’ve dreamt of, work in that career and pay off those loans…)
It has been pointed out…these were former students of the prof in question.
Is it skeevy? Probably. Is it abusive? Meh. At what point in time is a student former enough to date? A week? A year? A decade?
I know people who were colleagues, with one in a non-direct supervisory executive role. He left the company before they started dating so that they could start dating. They’ve now been married for 20+ years.
Once the power imbalance has been eliminated, I don’t see the problem. We’re not talking Stockholm Syndrome, here.
