By Christopher
Brennan
 |
|
Professors
in Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences will no longer be allowed to have
sexual relationships with undergrads
|
- University's previous policy only stopped sex with 'one's students'
- Professor relationships with grad students they supervise also banned
- Harvard and 93 other colleges under investigation for sexual assault policy
Harvard
professors have been officially banned from having sex with undergraduate
students at the university.
While many people assume that such
behavior would be forbidden, some colleges and universities have less
restrictive policies.
The Faculty of Arts and Sciences's
previous policy had only banned sexual relations with 'one's students' rather
than students generally, according to Bloomberg News.
A document with Harvard's new rules
also states that professors cannot have sex or romantic relationships with
graduate students under their supervision.
Relationships between graduate students
and undergraduates are allowed as long as one of the partners is not grading or
evaluating the other.
Harvard was among the first to ban professors
from sex with students they taught when a policy was made in 1984 after a
string of sexual misconduct allegations toward professors, according to
the Crimson.
Many universities adopted similar or
more restrictive policies in the 1980s and 90s.
Yale totally banned professor-undergrad
relationships in 2010 and University of Connecticut did so in 2013.
However, some have voiced opposition
such measures.
Anita Levy, a senior program officer at
the American Association of University Professors, said that the relationships
should not be completely barred.
'These relationships are going to occur
on campus and you must put as many ethical checks on them as possible, but a
blanket prohibition doesn't seem appropriate,' she said.
The AAUP did say that such
relationships between professors and students could lead to
'exploitation'.
The changes at Harvard come as its
undergraduate college remains under investigation by the US Department of
Education for its handling of sexual assault and harassment cases.
It is not clear if any of the
complaints were brought in professor-student interactions.
Ninety-four universities had pending
Title IX investigations against them at the beginning of this year for their
handling of sexual assault cases, according to the Huffington Post.
Harvard's law school was also under
investigation and found in violation of federal rules in December for two
cases, including one where the student waited over a year for a decision about
her sexual assault complaints.
The law school agreed to remedy its
sexual assault procedures.
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