Is Female Teacher and male student sex immoral?

[To the Dogs]

The real issue is fraternization. Developing too close a relationship of any kind with one's students should be prohibited by an educational institution. How and where to draw the line would be a problem, but certainly sexual contact would be included.

I agree that an ethical teacher or professor would recuse himself from grading a student for whom he has cultivated an active dislike. In cases where, sometime during the semester, I have discovered a student plagiarizing, I will often ask a colleague to give me a second opinion before I assign grades to subsequent assignments to make sure I am not being unfair.

I'm sorry to hear about your students. Anyhow, the problem with the question which this thread addresses is that it mixes too many different issues. There is the "sex with minors" issue, then there is the "sex with someone you have a professional relationship with" issue. Because the question was frames in terms of high school teachers, the question is pretty much decided solely on legal grounds. I think it would be more interesting to re-ask the question in terms of college teachers for example, where we have the presumption of sex between consenting adults rather than sex with a child. But then, I didn't propose the question in the first place.

I don't actually understand the underlying presumption of restrictions on sex when certain kinds of non-sexual relations also exist, although I know the rules that are passed by institutions. What I find very amusing is that one is generally prohibited from having any evaluative or decision-making relation with another person in the institution if you have a strongly positive emotional relationship (sexual relation or documented crush), but the same does not hold if you have a strongly negative emotional relation (hate the guts of, was divorced from, broke up with). The presumption seems to be that there is a danger that you will give an unjustly positive evaluation to the person, but we don't need to be concerned about an unjustly negative evaluation. In terms of the university's general interest (rule 1 is to avoid getting sued), there is actually a much stronger reason to ban any evaluative / supervisory relations when there is hatred, than when there is love. If Smith hates Jones and votes against tenure or fails Jones on an exam, and where tenure or an A was really deserved, then the university is at actual risk of getting sued, when compared to someone getting an unjust A or undeserved tenure. Few faculty or students will sue a university for unjustly rewarding them. Hence I find university no-relationship policies to be generally incomprehensible.

A propos your "not part of the job description" reasoning. I would agree that a teacher should not get extra compensation for having sex with a student or colleague; it's also true that having lunch with a student or colleague is not part of the job description, and it's also not prohibited by rule.

[DavidOdden]

The real issue is fraternization. Developing too close a relationship of any kind with one's students should be prohibited by an educational institution. How and where to draw the line would be a problem, but certainly sexual contact would be included.

Seems reasonable at first blush, but what is the underlying principle? I know the name of the claim -- "no fraternization!" -- but what is the principle that says why "fraternization" is bad. When you say "too cloose", I have to ask "too close for what?" Why does this only apply to students (if that's what you're proposing). You don't have to reveal any details of your life, but my place sees the question generally, so it involves faculty on faculty relationships as well. My opinion is that if someone could actually show why it's bad, then it would be a lot easier to draw that line. Should there be separate rules for undergraduate students as opposed to graduate students? Should the principle be in terms of an "active relation", or does it also apply with equal validity to a prior relationship? Since as far as I can tell there is no real principle involved, I don't see any way that these questions can be answered.

[To the Dogs]

The issue comes up whenever someone is in a position that requires evaluating the performance of another person. Certainly teacher-student, but also senior faculty - junior faculty could be an issue as well. In the medical profession, I hear, it's generally accepted that a surgeon should not do surgery on members of his own family. I assume it's because the emotions involved might prevent him from doing his job properly. So, if I owned a school, or were on the administration of an educational institution, I would make a rule that discourages the teachers from getting into a situation where they have to evaluate the performance of students about whom they feel strong emotions. Exactly how I would formulate that rule is something I'll leave until such time as I am asked (for purposes of my job) to do so. And that would apply to whatever kind of student you're talking about, insofar as there are grades that actually matter for someone's career. For a recreational class, say, dog agility or dancing or something, the same rules wouldn't apply to relationships between teacher-student. However, I, even as a recreational class teacher, might want to avoid looking like I am playing favorites with my students, so that I don't offend any of them. After all, they're my customers.

So, how's this for a principle: Avoid/discourage situations that require you to evaluate the performance of a person about whom you feel strong emotions, at least whenever such evaluation is important for that person's future career.

Let me add that I agree with what Kendall said earlier as well. If I was a parent, I would never send my kids to an educational institution in which this practice was tolerated. I wouldn't want my kids to be improperly influenced in their choice of romantic partners. Also, even if there are a few cases in which such relationships are legitimate, I would guess that most aren't. So again, if I was in charge, I would make rules against this in order not to enable this behavior.

Seems reasonable at first blush, but what is the underlying principle? I know the name of the claim -- "no fraternization!" -- but what is the principle that says why "fraternization" is bad. When you say "too cloose", I have to ask "too close for what?" Why does this only apply to students (if that's what you're proposing). You don't have to reveal any details of your life, but my place sees the question generally, so it involves faculty on faculty relationships as well. My opinion is that if someone could actually show why it's bad, then it would be a lot easier to draw that line. Should there be separate rules for undergraduate students as opposed to graduate students? Should the principle be in terms of an "active relation", or does it also apply with equal validity to a prior relationship? Since as far as I can tell there is no real principle involved, I don't see any way that these questions can be answered.

Edited December 8, 2007 by To the Dogs

[DavidOdden]

So, how's this for a principle: Avoid/discourage situations that require you to evaluate the performance of a person about whom you feel strong emotions, at least whenever such evaluation is important for that person's future career.

Now we have a statement of a principle. I don't see any reason to include the "at least whenever" exclusion: why not just stop after "emotions"? Here are some consequences of that principle. First, it applies more generally, and includes hatred and jealousy as well as love and adoration. Second, it separates sex from presumed emotions -- not that the two should be separate, but the fact is that they are, for some people, so meaningless sex would actually be okay. As it stands, the principle is arbitrary, but we that can be fixed by filling in what I believe is the unspoken causal principle that relates the "emotions and evaluation" principle to the human psychology, namely the assumption that strong emotions will cause evasion of reality. If we grant that, then we can see that an evaluation by a person with strong emotions about X cannot be relied on.

However, emotions are not an automatic evil: sometimes they are a recognition of facts of reality. Thus Dagny loved Galt not "just because", arbitrarily, but because of his objective nature, as a recognition of what he actually is. A positive evaluation by a person who loves another person for their mind is a recognition of reality, not a distortion of reality, idem a negative evaluation by a person who recognizes the intellectual horrors of a colleague's miscreant theories. As a matter of morality, it is proper for a person to positively evaluate the actual excellence of another, and it does not become immoral if in addition that recognition of fact is paired with a strong positive emotion. So morally speaking, I think the "should not evaluate in the presence of strong emotions" principle should give way to the better principle "should only evaluate in terms of the relevant facts". Procedurally, of course, an institution may need to add the presumption that all parties are fundamentally irrational, to avoid getting sued or to avoid dealing with the consequences of the actually irrational people associated with the institution.

Exactly how I would formulate that rule is something I'll leave until such time as I am asked (for purposes of my job) to do so.

Sure, though depending on your overall plan of life, it may fall on you in some form sooner than you planned. If you already know that you wouldn't evaluate a manuscript or grant proposal that you strongly disliked or liked, then you're a major part of the way toward formulating a policy of evaluative neutrality which is ultimately what the principle would reduce to.

If I was a parent, I would never send my kids to an educational institution in which this practice was tolerated.

This is actually the one rational basis for such a policy that I've ever heard, though as far as I know, it never actually is the actual basis for such policies. First, it would only apply to sex with undergraduates; second, it could be waived for self-supporting undergraduates; third, it should probably be wider than the prevaling "teacher of the student" policy, and should probably instead apply to "any employee of the university"; finally, it would probably be variable from institution to institution, and could be a selling point that appeals to different segments of the market.

[Moebius]

As an interesting anecdote for all of this,when I was in college one of my history professors was quite fond of me. He brought me hot chocolate every day, setting it on my desk for everyone to see, and called me his "Irish beauty" ( I had strawberry blonde hair back then, and he was Irish and seemed to be attracted to that aspect of my appearance).

That sounds... uh... really creepy.

Usually yes (if it was 22 and 26 ok) but there are stretches of time within one's life in which even a small age gap accounts for a very significant difference in life experience and development (obviously I don't mean physical). In my opinion this is one of those times.

If the teacher's maturity level matches that of her student to the point that she could feel romantic admiration (which requires for a female looking up to rather than looking down) for a high school boy and strong enough that she would want to act on it (and act on it now) I am not sure she should be teaching. I would consider that a disfunction.

This sort of makes me wonder -- how old was Nathaniel Brenden when Ayn Rand started sleeping with him?