Question What are the true reasons behind the prohibition of teachers/lecturers to develop romantic relationships with students [or vice-versa]?

Accepted:
April 11, 2006

Comments

There are all sorts of regulations about this in different jurisdictions, but I assume you are interested in the moral prohibition and the reasons for it.

I don't think it's wrong in general for teachers and students to become romantically involved with each other. It is wrong only when they also have a student-teacher relationship, or a potential student-teacher relationship. I believe that, in such cases, becoming romantically involved is always wrong.

This belief is plausible only if the word "potential" is understood in a robust sense. Otherwise any romantic relationship involving a teacher would be wrong (because it is always possible for the other party to become this teacher's student). So I mean it in a robust sense: You are potentially my teacher only if I am a registered student in a unit of a university in which you teach -- a graduate student in your department, say, or an undergraduate in your college -- even if I have not taken a class with you.

Such student-teacher romantic relationships are wrong, because they subvert the educational environment. When such relationships are regarded as acceptable, then many teachers will try to convert their authority and power over their student's educational success into romantic and sexual affairs, and many students will try to convert their sexual attractiveness into special attention and better grades from their teachers.

Much thought has been given to how such conversion attempts (esp. on the part of teachers) can be blocked without proscribing all romantic involvements by teachers with their students. But such intermediate solutions are bound to fail. To see this, suppose there are widely accepted constraints on how teachers may approach students they hope to become romantically involved with. With these constraints known, teachers will seek creative ways of signaling their interest in a constraint-abiding way. The offensive conversions will not be blocked, but will merely play out a bit differently. And such constraints have a further draw-back: Students, knowing that teachers trying to pick them up must find a creative approach, will often suspect romantic intentions where there are none. And teachers who do not want to be suspected of romantic intentions must then avoid any interactions with their students that the latter might conceivably interpret as a creative but constraint-abiding romantic approach. This is a great loss to the student-teacher relation which, at its best, goes well beyond the classroom by involving mentoring, conversations, even friendship. In an environment in which romantic relations between teachers and their students are simply out of the question, you can take your student for an intensive intellectual discussion on a walk through the park. You can watch a play together, or a movie. In an environment in which such romantic relations are viewed as acceptable so long as they came about "in the right way," the discussion will take place in your office with the door wide open and with some effort at mutual reassurance of the strictly professional character of the proceedings. You'll have a hard time discussing Freud or the Symposium.

I have suggested that romantic relationships between teachers and their students are wrong because of the great damage they can do to the student. Such damage can be enormous. Just imagine the situation of a third-year graduate student under romantic pressure from her or his thesis adviser who, typically, is the only person in the department, or by far the best, for supervising this thesis. If the student falls in love with this teacher and their romantic relationship lasts happily till the thesis defense, then there is little harm to the student. But what if not? Unbelievable numbers of esp. women graduate students have been very severely harmed by such pressures and failed romantic relationships, often finding themselves compelled to quit halfway through graduate school.

I have made the further point that such relationships -- when widely viewed as an acceptable practice within colleges and universities -- also harm other students and teachers. Under this heading of third-party harms one should also mention the discomfort of students who know or suspect that their teacher is having an affair with one of their peers. Such students must assume that everything their teacher knows about them will be passed on to their fellow student, and they will also often suspect that their teacher's lover will be unfairly favored (also by this teacher's colleagues) not just in terms of face time and advice, but also in terms of grades, teaching assignments, funding opportunities, letters of recommendation, and much else.

I am not denying that a teacher and his/her student may fall in love with each other in the most perfect way, nor that something magnificent would then be lost if they could not become romantically involved. But I think that, rather than realize their wonderful gain at others' expense, they should then bear the cost themselves: by waiting until the student graduates, or by one of them moving to another school.

Question What are the true reasons behind the prohibition of teachers/lecturers to develop romantic relationships with students [or vice-versa]? Accepted:April 11, 2006

Question What are the true reasons behind the prohibition of teachers/lecturers to develop romantic relationships with students [or vice-versa]?

Accepted:
April 11, 2006