Policy would prohibit prof-student romances

Richard Montgomery High School '93 Rockville, Md. Consensual sexual relations between faculty members and their students will be specifically prohibited by University policy, if a proposal drafted by a subcommittee of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee is enacted. If passed, this proposal would make the University one of only a few academic institutions in the country to have such a strict policy. Standing faculty voted on the proposal this month by a mail ballot. Consensual sexual relations deserve separate attention from sexual harassment, the subcommittee concluded, because "other students, in particular, may doubt whether evaluations can be fair when a teacher is sexually involved with a student." Acknowledging that sexual relations between teachers and students can impair professors' judgement regarding academic matters, the proposed policy states that "any sexual relations between a teacher and a student during the period of the teacher/student relationship are prohibited." Applying to faculty, graduate and professional students, academic advisors and program directors the subcommittee's proposal includes "all others who have supervisory academic responsibility for a student." The subcommittee also considered extending the rules to forbid relations between professors and all undergraduates. "Undergraduates may be inexperienced and impressionable," the subcommittee explained in its report that accompanied the proposal. "Moreover, although it is often said that in loco parentis is a thing of the past, we are not sure that undergraduates' parents would, or that they should, agree, when told that their sons or daughters were sleeping with their professors." Because a rule prohibiting relations between professors and all undergraduates would delve too far into people's private lives, the subcommittee concluded, the proposal only strongly discourages such relationships. Recent attempts to clarify the University's Sexual Harassment Policy have come in the wake of two unrelated controversies concerning Economics Professor David Cass and former Assistant English Professor Malcolm Woodfield. In September, University administrators declined a departmental recommendation that Cass be appointed acting economics graduate chairperson, citing a "difference in understanding of important issues." Those issues stem from his sexual relationship with former University student Claudia Stachel, a former economics graduate student. Though Stachel was not in Cass' class and the relationship was consensual, Vice Provost for Graduate Education Janice Madden said his actions were "not consistent with the policy of the University." "I would not appoint a head of any graduate group who thought it was OK to date graduate students," she said in September. Cass, a world-renowned economist who had held the position of graduate chair of the Economics Department from 1981 to 1986, is now leaving the University after 20 years of scholarship. Both students and faculty in the department have written letters on Cass' behalf, claiming he was a capable and well-respected administrator. "He had done this in the past and done an outstanding job," Economics Department Chairperson Andrew Postlewaite said. "We continue to believe that he would have done an outstanding job." But Cass claimed that Madden's questions about his relationship with Stachel and her inquiries into whether he dated any other graduate students was a violation of his privacy. "No way am I going to tell them about my private life, flat out," he said. "They slurred the department and slandered me." In early May, the Faculty Senate Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility concluded that administrators acted improperly when they questioned Cass about past relationships. But the Committee also concluded that administrators acted within their rights in denying Cass the graduate chairmanship. In an unrelated incident, former University student Lisa Topol accused Woodfield of sexual harassment after their three-month affair ended in the spring of 1993. In March 1994, Topol filed suit against the University, charging that administrators had failed to resolve her harassment complaint in a timely manner. Topol also had suits pending against Woodfield in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court and against Bates College in Maine, where Woodfield taught for two years before coming to the University. Although he admitted to having had a sexual encounter with Topol on one occasion, Woodfield vehemently denied all allegations of sexual harassment. Settlements were reached in all three cases in May. The settlements' terms are confidential, according to University General Counsel Shelley Green. "The parties have agreed to resolve their differences," Green said. "This ends the process -- all of the litigation." Topol's attorney, Alice Ballard, confirmed that no further action is expected on any of her client's complaints. Woodfield resigned from the University on April 26, 1994. Staff writer Tammy Polonsky, University of Chicago Lab Schools '92, Chicago, Illinois, contributed to this story.