SAN FRANCISCO – Starting in the fall, University of California's 14,000 professors will be barred from dating their students, even if the relationships are consensual.
UC regents voted overwhelmingly yesterday to approve the policy despite concerns that it is overly broad and could be difficult to enforce.
The dating policy that was endorsed by UC's faculty senate forbids faculty members from becoming romantically or sexually involved with students they teach or should "reasonably expect to have in the future," meaning any student "known to have an interest" in a faculty member's academic area.
For decades, universities have been concerned with romantic relationships between students and professors. Policies range from no dating whatsoever to permissible dating as long as deans are informed.
UC's policy falls in the middle of the road, said Gayle Binion, chair of UC's academic council. The key to the policy, Binion said, is the supervisory position of professors and the potential for an abuse of power. If professors recuse themselves from teaching or advising a student before entering a relationship, they would not be in violation of the policy. Violators could be disciplined, ranging from a letter of censure to dismissal.
Some regents voting against the policy said they feared its enforcement could prove difficult.
"This could be a legal nightmare," Regent Velma Montoya said.
The policy, which is two years in the making, follows a high-profile case in which a former UC Berkeley law student alleged she was sexually assaulted by Boalt Hall Dean John D. Dwyer. The former student alleged she was assaulted after she passed out following a night of drinking with Dwyer in 2000. Dwyer, who left Boalt in January, said the incident was consensual. The student graduated and passed the bar exam before filing her complaint.
