AAUP Recommends the Following Policy

Euben, Donna. ALegal Issues In The Classroom.@ AAUP Legal Issues in Higher Education 4 June 2003. 12 January 2006. http://www.aaup.org/Legal /info %20outlines/classroom.htm

AIII. Consensual Relationships

AAUP recommends the following policy:

Sexual relations between students and faculty members with whom they also have an academic or evaluative relationship are fraught with the potential for exploitation. The respect and trust accorded a professor by a student, as well as the power exercised by the professor in an academic or evaluative role, make voluntary consent by the student suspect. . . . In their relationships with students, members of the faculty are expected to be aware of their professional responsibilities and to avoid apparent or actual conflict of interest, favoritism, or bias. When a sexual relationship exists, effective steps should be taken to ensure unbiased evaluation or supervision of the student.

There are basically three kinds of policies: absolute prohibitions, limited bans on faculty-student supervisory relationships, and strong discouragement.

A variety of institutional policies exist:

* The College of William and Mary "prohibits consensual romantic and/or sexual relationships between faculty members and undergraduate students as well as between faculty members and those graduate students for whom the faculty member has direct professional responsibility."

* The University of Michigan does not prohibit such relationships, but provides that such relationships are "potentially exploitative and should be avoided."

* The University of Iowa policy provides: "No faculty member shall have an amorous relationship (consensual or otherwise) with a student who is enrolled in a course being taught by the faculty member or whose academic work (including work as a teaching assistant) is being supervised by the faculty member."

* At Ohio Northern University, "faculty and staff members should not have sexual relations with students to whom they are not married."

* The Duke University policy provides that: (1) any situation of authority be terminated when a consensual relationship between a student and a professor exists or develops; and (2) the relationship be disclosed to the faculty member's supervisor.

Query: Consider the implications for not only the student a faculty member may be involved with, but for other students in the classroom.

Waters v. Metropolitan State University: A female student and male professor began a consensual relationship after the student was no longer enrolled in the college. When the relationship ended, the student filed a sexual harassment claim against the professor. The court found, in part, that there was no showing of sexual harassment because there was no evidence that the professor's actions were unwelcome. In so ruling, the federal appellate court relied on the district court's findings, which included that the female student was an "adult student, somewhat older than the 'typical' college student," and that the professor was no longer her teacher, and had never been her faculty adviser. 52 Fed. Appx. 1 (8th Cir. 2002) (unpublished). A