SAN FRANCISCO ““ Though widely considered a professional
taboo and a major breach of ethics, there is no systemwide rule at
the University of California prohibiting professors from both
dating and lecturing their students.
But, as UC Regents discussed at their meeting Thursday, this
freedom may be coming to an end. Led by a report from Academic
Senate Chair Gayle Binion, the board responded to ongoing talks to
amend university policy on consensual relationships between faculty
and students.
The board did not explicitly discuss a recent incident at UC
Berkeley, in which John Dwyer, dean at Boalt Hall School of Law
school, quit after allegedly sexually harassing a student whom he
admitted to sleeping with after a night of heavy drinking. While
high-profile cases like this are rare, Binion said the UC still
needs an official policy covering student-faculty
relationships.
“We need an official policy to show that we care about
this, and for transgressions there are sanctions,” she
said.
But even without systemwide rules, Binion said the vast majority
of UC faculty do not romance their students.
“A sexual liaison with a student is just deemed to be
inappropriate,” she said.
In 1983, the Academic Senate adopted a resolution saying
faculty-student relationships can be unacceptable and harmful and
to the learning environment. However, these findings were never
incorporated into the faculty’s code of conduct.
Why not?
“We don’t know,” Binion said, adding that the
faculty had predominantly lived under the assumption that there was
a rule governing faculty-student dating.
The Academic Senate will present recommendations to the Office
of the President at some point in the future, and the regents will
make final approval for any new policy. Though many administrative
matters at the UC are determined at the campus level, the
university considers this issue serious enough to warrant a
systemwide policy.
“I think it’s clear that the regents have said this
should be a uniform policy,” said UC President Richard
Atkinson.
What shape a new policy would take is still up in the air. The
senate, president and regents have not yet worked out how strict
the rule would be. Professors could be banned from dating all
students or just undergraduates. Among graduate students, the
policy could make distinctions based on students’ and
faculty’s respective departments.
Though there is not yet agreement on how far-reaching a new
policy should be, forming clear-written rules on consentual
faculty-student relationships and sexual harassment was widely
perceived by the regents as a positive step.
“I am very heartened to see us moving in this
direction,” said regent Judith Hopkinson.
The senate hopes to complete their recommendations by the end of
the academic year, Binion said.