Way back in February of 2015 Laura Kipnis’ essay “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe” was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Though controversial in content, it was a balanced consideration of campus codes governing relationships between students and professors. In response to this essay, Kipnis was subjected to what she rightly called a Title IX Inquisition. While the legal issues of such codes are interesting, my main concern as a philosopher is with their ethics.

I will begin by getting the easy stuff out of the way. As universities are obligated to provide a safe environment conducive to learning, they should have rules that protect students. Since universities are obligated to ensure grades are assigned on merit, they should have rules forbidding exchanging goods or services (including sexual services) for grades. Crimes such as sexual assault and rape should be handled by the police, though universities should also have rules governing the employment of professors who are convicted of such crimes.

It is also relatively easy to settle the issue of whether universities should forbid consenting relationships between professors and students when the professor has power over the student. This would include such things as the student being enrolled in the professor’s class or serving as their TA.  After all, if a student is involved with a professor, then the student might have an unfair advantage relative to other students. This is distinct from the explicit exchange of a grade for sexual favors. Rather, this is a matter of positive bias in favor of the student that can result in special treatment. For example, a professor might grade her boyfriend’s paper much easier than those of other students. 

While sexual relations can lead to bias, these are not the only relations that can have this effect. A professor who is friends with a student or related to a student can be biased in favor of that student. This is distinct from explicit nepotism in which grades are decided based on the relationship. So, if the principle is based on the potential for bias, then students who are friends, relatives or otherwise comparably connected to the professor would also need to be forbidden from being in such roles.

It can, obviously, be argued there is a relevant difference between sexual relations and non-sexual relations that would justify forbidding a professor from dating a student in, while still allowing them to have a friend or relative as a student. Alternatively, a university could have a general ban on professors having students with whom they have a potentially biasing relationship, be it sexual, platonic, or family relationship. As a general policy, this has considerable appeal on the grounds of fairness. It can, however, be countered on the grounds that a professional should be able to control bias in favor of friends and family. But this view opens the door to the claim that a professional should also be able to control bias in the case of a romantic relationship. However, most would certainly be skeptical about such a claim. I recall from my own graduate school days the comments students would make about students who were involved with their professor or TA. Put in polite terms, they expressed skepticism about the fairness of the grading.

My considered view is a conditional one: if a professor can maintain objectivity, then the unfairness argument would have no weight. However, it is reasonable to think that many professors could not maintain such objectivity, thus justifying a general rule forbidding relationship. After all, rule are not crafted with the best people in mind, but those that are less than the best.

The fairness argument could not, of course, be used to justify forbidding professors from dating students who are not and will not be in their classes (or otherwise under them in a professional capacity). So, for example, if an engineering professor were to date an English Literature major who will never take any of the classes she teaches, then there would be no concerns about fairness.

As harassment and coercive relationships should always be forbidden, there would thus seem to be no grounds for forbidding such a consensual relationship between two adults. However, there are good arguments in favor of this general forbiddance.

There are excellent practical reasons to forbid romantic or sexual relationships between students and professors even when there is no coercion, no harassment, and no unfairness. One practical reason is that relationships usually fail and often fail in dramatic ways, and it could be problematic for a university to have such drama play out on campus. Another practical reason is that such relationships can be a legal powder keg in terms of potential lawsuits against a university. As such, university administrators sensibly think that their money and brand should be protected by forbidding such relationships.

From a moral perspective, the concern is whether there are grounds for forbidding such relationships (other than, of course, a utilitarian argument about the potential for brand damage or lawsuits).

One standard argument is that there is always a power disparity between professors and students, and this entails that all such relationships are potentially coercive. Even if most professors would not consciously coerce a student, rules are not made for how the best people would act but for what those who are less than best are likely to do. As such, a blanket ban on relationships is necessary to prevent the possibility of coercive relationships between students and professors. It is thus morally justified.

It might be objected that a rule against coercive relationships would suffice and that if the professor has no professional relationship with the student, then they should be treated as consenting adults. After all, a professor in such a situation would seem to have no power over the student and coercion via professional position would not be possible. So, they should be free to have a relationship.

It could be countered that a professor always has power over a student in virtue of being a professor, even when the professor has no professional relationship with the student. While a professor might have some “power” in regard to being older (usually), having some status, having more income (usually), and so on, these do not seem to be distinct from the “power” one adult could have over another outside the academy and in the dating world.

One could argue that there seems to be nothing specific to being a professor that would give a professor power over the student that would make the relationship automatically coercive. As such, there would seem to be no grounds for forbidding the relationship.

It could be objected that students are especially vulnerable to the power of professors and lack the autonomy needed to resist this power. As such, the university must act in a paternalistic way and forbid all relationships—to protect naïve and powerless students from the cunning, powerful predatorial professors. This would be analogous to laws that protect minors from adults because minors cannot give informed consent. If college students are analogous to (but not legally) minors, then the same reasoning would apply. But this approach seems insulting to the students and would suggest that changes to the age of consent would be warranted. So casting adult students as analogous to children is probably not a good idea.

A reasonable approach is to point out that there is no guarantee that a professor might not end up being in a position of relative power and it would be unreasonable to depend on some sort of informal honor system in which students and professors promise to never be in such a situation. Hence, a blanket ban on such relationships would seem warranted. This is analogous to how a professional should never date co-workers or clients of their business, even if they currently have no professional interaction. Since they could have such interaction someday, they should not risk having a relationship.

There are also other moral grounds for forbidding such relationships that are not based on concerns about power disparities. For example, a case can be made that a professor being involved with a student would simply be unprofessional and hence unethical.

From a legal, practical and moral standpoint, the best policy would seem to be for professors and students to not have romantic relationships.