CRP-A = 30, CRP-B = 48, Neither = 22, No Vote = 3
| Unit | CRP-A | CRP-B | Neither | Optional Comments |
| Africana Studies | A | |||
| Animal Science (2) | A | B | Read-B | |
| Anthropology | N | Read | ||
| Applied Econ & Mgmt. (2) | A | |||
| Applied And Engineering Physics | B | Read | ||
| Architecture | A | |||
| Art | NO VOTE | |||
| Asian Studies | N | |||
| Astronomy | N | Read | ||
| Bio Stat & Comp Bio | A | |||
| Bio & Environmental Eng | B | |||
| Biomedical Engineering | B | Read | ||
| Biomedical Sciences (2) | A | B | ||
| Chemistry & Chem Bio (2) | N N | Read Read | ||
| Chemical & Biomolecular Eng. | NO VOTE | |||
| City & Regional Planning | A | |||
| Civil and Environmental Eng (2) | A A | |||
| Classics | A | |||
| Clinical Sciences (2) | N N | |||
| Communication | B | Read | ||
| Comparative Literature | N | |||
| Computer Science (2) | B | N | Read-B Read-N | |
| Cornell Assoc Prof Emeriti | A | |||
| Design Environmental Analysis | A | |||
| Developmental Sociology | B | |||
| Earth and Atmospheric Sci | B | |||
| Ecology & Evolutionary Bio (2) | B B | Read | ||
| Economics | B | Read | ||
| Electrical & Computer Eng.(2) | B | N | Read-N | |
| English (2) | B | N | Read-B Read-N | |
| Entomology | NO VOTE | |||
| Fiber Sci & Apparel Design | A | |||
| Food Science | B | Read | ||
| German Studies | B | |||
| Government (2) | A | N | Read-A | |
| History (2) | A | B | ||
| History of Art | N | |||
| Horticulture | A | |||
| Hotel Administration (2) | B B | |||
| Human Development | B | |||
| ILR (2) | N N | Read-N Read-N | ||
| Information Science | B | Read | ||
| Johnson Grad School Mgmt. (2) | B | N | Read-N | |
| Landscape Architecture | B | Read | ||
| Law (2) | A A | |||
| Linguistics | N | |||
| Material Science & Eng. | B | Read | ||
| Mathematics (2) | B | N | Read-B Read-N | |
| Mechanical & Aerospace Eng (2) | A | B | ||
| Microbiology | B | |||
| Microbio & Immunology (2) | A | N | Read | |
| Molecular Bio & Genetics (2) | B B | Read | ||
| Molecular Medicine | B | |||
| Music | B | Read | ||
| Natural Resources | B | |||
| Near Eastern Studies | A | |||
| Neurobiology & Behavior | B | |||
| Nutritional Sciences (2) | A | B | ||
| Operations Research | B | Read | ||
| Performing and Media Arts | B | |||
| Philosophy | B | Read | ||
| Physics (2) | B | N | Read-B Read-N | |
| Plant Biology | A | |||
| Plant Breeding & Genetics | B | Read | ||
| Plant Pathology | B | Read | ||
| Policy Analysis and Mgmt. (2) | A A | Read | ||
| Population Med & Diag Sci | B | |||
| Psychology | N | Read | ||
| ROTC | A | |||
| Romance Studies | N | Read | ||
| Science &Technology Studies | A | Read | ||
| Sociology | A | Read | ||
| Soil and Crop Sciences | B | |||
| Statistical Science | B | |||
| At-Large (Avery) | B | |||
| At-Large (Cherney) | B | |||
| At-Large (Gomez) | A | |||
| At-Large (Mazourek) | B | |||
| At-Large (Seth) | A | |||
| At-Large (Sipple) | B | |||
| At-Large (Thorne) | B | Read |
Comments by Those Who Support CRP-A
Government
Our department is supportive of a policy that recognizes the role that power can play in relationships between teachers and students. So most colleagues favor restrictions on sexual relations between people in authority and subordinates. There is, however, concern about limitations on individual autonomy and infringement on privacy and considerable suspicion about giving an outside organization –Office 6.X– a prominent role.
Microbiology and Immunology
After extensive discussion within our department, there was overwhelming consensus (with one dissenter) around CRP-A. The dissenter was inclined towards CRP-B. Others, including me, felt that CRP-B with its 6X Office was too complex. We were also persuaded by student opinions.
Policy Analysis and Management
These proposed policies reflect a conflict between two values: 1) the educational mission of Cornell, which requires establishing a learning environment that is transparently fair and objective; and 2) the desire for everyone to have whatever relationship they want with whomever they want and to keep it private if they wish.
The need to establish a fair learning environment that is free of unwanted pressures from authority figures or concerns about faculty objectivity takes precedence over any desire some faculty may have to have intimate relations with students. For this reason I support P1, which prohibits anyone at Cornell from exercising authority over someone with whom they are having or had a sexual/romantic relationship. I support P2 because I think it’s inappropriate for faculty to have a sexual/romantic relationship with an undergraduate given the power dynamic; faculty have enormous advantages over undergraduates in terms of age, income, experience, power, and education.
P3 is a tougher call, because P1 already rules out relationships in which faculty have a position of authority over the student, and P2 rules out relationships with undergraduates (the youngest students). P3 raises the issue of whether to also ban faculty relations with graduate/professional students in the same field or degree program over whom they exercise no authority. I can see arguments for both sides, but in the end I come back to the importance of protecting students from unwanted advances from faculty who are authority figures even if they are not in a position of direct authority. Even if the faculty member is not their teacher or advisor, students might fear retaliation in the allocation of TA positions, nominations for internal awards, annual reviews, or job placements. Even if faculty would not do that, a student might fear it happening and agree to things that they would not otherwise. Likewise, students who know that other students are in relationships with faculty in the field or program may fear that the allocation of grades, awards, fellowships, and recommendations are influenced by such personal relationships, and the learning environment would be compromised.
All faculty in a graduate field or degree program, whether or not they are the student’s teacher or advisor, are authority figures and thus an imbalance of power exists. I appreciate that this comes at the cost of limiting people’s freedom of association. However, it is necessary to establish a fair learning environment and the parties could always begin their relationship after graduation, when the educational relationship has ended.
Science and Technology Studies
The department is in favor of instituting a policy – not unanimously, but overwhelmingly so. While questions about details and implementation remain, a strong majority of colleagues opted for CRP-A. This option was considered appropriate for a department with a comparatively small field like S&TS. However, it was also noted that the field ban included in CRP-A might be too extensive for departments with larger fields and graduate/professional student populations.
Sociology
To register the Department of Sociology’s vote for the first option (CRP-A). I have had discussions with my colleagues in Sociology both over email and in person. We even discussed the issue in a recent faculty meeting (Wednesday 4/18/18). The vote for the most restrictive policy recommendation (CRP-A) was unanimous among Sociology faculty who were present at the 4/18/18 Sociology Department faculty meeting.
Comments by Those Who Support CRP-B
Animal Science
My vote for plan B (CRP-B) is based upon the wishes of the faculty members I represent and my own personal preference for a much less restrictive policy than is plan A. In fact, my colleagues and I are concerned that plan A is so restrictive that sexual or romantic relationships that develop between faculty members and graduate or professional students are more likely to be hidden so that – if they are later made public – there would be more damage to the two parties and the University than if they had been disclosed and a recusal plan put in place.
Applied and Engineering Physics
Several faculty members have witnessed many relationships between graduate students and faculty within the same that have blossomed into happy marriages. These members couldn’t fully support CRP-A because it would prevent such relationships from happening in the first place.
Even though several members also felt that, in this current climate, it would be better to err on the side of caution and move forward with a ban on faculty/graduate relations within the same field, they also accepted that CRP-B was an acceptable compromise as long as recusal plans will be well-regulated and, most importantly, enforceable.
Overall, there was a consensus that CRP-B should be enough to limit most abuses of power and unethical behavior from happening within the University.
Biomedical Engineering
This vote is based on a faculty vote taken 4/18/18 in a faculty meeting: CRP-A = 2, CRP-B=18, Neither =2.
Communication
The vote for CRP-B reflects a majority view of the Department of Communication, where 9 preferred CRP-B, 3 preferred CRP-A, and 2 preferred neither (in an online poll following a discussion in our faculty meeting on 4/23). I would note that a number of faculty raised concerns about the broad reach of P2 but generally recognized that the benefits of such a policy outweighed the cons. Faculty also expressed a desire for greater clarity regarding implementation and who counts as “faculty members” under the proposed policies.
Computer Science
We polled the computer science faculty in a meeting specifically for CRP proposals and via email. There was general consensus for CRP-B, some for CRP-A, and little or no support for a vote of neither. As a result, we are voting for CRP-B which seems to be the most responsible proposal with the most balance.
Economics
Economics strongly supports the need for a policy and strongly prefers CRP-B to CRP-A. They wondered, however, who monitors the office.
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
[Would have preferred to have the Miller resolution disclosure process]. I strongly support B over A, in part because of my personal history. Ten years after we married, my wife started on a PhD program at Cornell in my field and my department. We took strong steps to protect against conflict of interest, and things went well. She earned her PhD. We are still here at Cornell. Had CRP-A been in effect in 1997 when she started grad school, she would have been prevented from studying at Cornell. This may well have led to our leaving Cornell and going elsewhere, to a ;arger community with more than one university, so she could pursue her professional goal.
English
I would have preferred that the Miller disclosure process be adopted.
Food Science
Our faculty was divided. CRP-A = 7, CRP-B = 10, Neither = 3
Information Science
IS is split between CRP-A and CRP-B, but everyone sees the arguments for both. There is strong support, however, for having a policy; and, in light of Wednesday’s discussion, they mean a “visible” policy
Landscape Architecture
If a disclosure process and recusal plan is in place.
Material Science and Engineering
The Policy should represent only the greatest common factor among all the fields
The nature of the interactions between faculty and graduate students vary significantly across fields in the university. Interactions in engineering and science fields tend to be relatively compartmentalized between the advisor (and a small set of collaborators) and the student. Other fields may have much more extensive interactions among many of the faculty and students throughout a PhD career. Any rule instituted at the University level should only address those issues that are clearly common and appropriate for every field. In fields where more restrictive policies would be appropriate, they should be free to develop and implement them.
There should be a distinction between pre- and post-A exam graduate students
The impact of relationships between faculty and graduate students does have the potential to negatively impact the environment for the other students, especially with regard to classes and TA assignments. But there is an important change in the nature of the interactions as students move from student/instructor in pre A-exam relationships to a mentor/mentee relationship in post A-exam research. This is the case at least in many engineering and science fields. Any restriction on faculty/graduate student relationships within a field should be limited to students pre A-exam. Of course relationships involving direct professional interactions—whether pre- or post A-exam are unequivocally prohibited.
The impact of completely prohibiting relationships within a field will fall disproportionately on graduate students.
A grad student who enters a prohibited relationship with a faculty member in the field would be the partner more likely to have to change fields, to his or her detriment. It is very unlikely that the faculty member would change fields. This is inherent in the power structure.
Mathematics
I did not vote for P3 since I do not believe it is well supported in the Mathematics Department. Among our faculty we regularly have non-tenure track assistant professors (who we call post-docs) They are often new PhDs and their circle of friends typically includes many of our graduate students. They are not field members so they do not serve on thesis committees and circumstances in which they have authority over graduate students are limited. In this instance (which is not rare) I see the “right to romance” outweighing concerns about conflicts-of-interest or impinging on the freedom to pursue academic and professional interests.
Molecular Biology and Genetics
A reasonable compromise between CRP-A and CRP-B would be to include a statement in CRP-B that says sexual relationships between faculty and grad students/postdocs is strongly discouraged
Music
On behalf of the Department of Music, I cast the attached ballot, which reflects the opinion of those from the department who have written or spoken to me about the issue.
Steve has also said to me that, in the department meeting where this was discussed, opinions were mixed and no consensus was reached, so I feel that the attached ballot is an accurate reflection of those who had clear enough opinions to state them emphatically.
I want to say that I, personally, feel that there has been not enough discussion of the mechanisms for receiving, investigating, and adjudicating (r-i-a) these issues to be reassure me that we are not getting into a situation that is, like the Policy 6.4 r-i-a processes, fraught with complications that will enmesh the university in more incidents of public open conflict and litigation.
I felt that at the last Senate meeting the members were just getting to the key points of discussion. And several of the faculty comments were cogent expressions of doubt about the (full) resolution and the r-i-a processes. It is, indeed, the faculty that is most effected by the legislation. It seems to me that CRP resolution and the processes described in it need a fuller discussion than just a choice between A and B (or neither A nor B).
My view is that we are setting up another separate “investigatory/judicial” process in the university rather than strengthening those, such as the Campus Code of Conduct, the Judicial Codes Counsellor office, and the Judicial Administrator office, that have been vetted throughout the community. I realize that, in certain areas the the code has different mechanisms of investigation and implementation on different constituencies (for example, faculty but also, in some areas, staff), but the code also has room to set some community standards in these areas.
Operations Research and Industrial Engineering
- When discussing this in ORIE, clear consensus did not emerge but feedback I got was in favor of CRPB and this is how I voted. There was clear reluctance by some to prohibit grad student—faculty consensual relationships outright. This seemed based on 2 arguments: (a) Such a policy is unworkable. [I find this puzzling since why should a grad prohibition be more unworkable than an undergrad prohibition.] (b) It’s none of our business. [This is unconvincing.] From what I can tell from our PhD students, females tend to have somewhat different views than males. No surprise. I think you accurately summarized the tensions between differing goals, eg, protecting the weaker half of a relationship vs the libertarian view.
- Recusal may not always be practical or effective. Graduate education is sometimes narrow with few (one?) specialists in an area. If the specialist is recused, who mentors the student? Also, I’m guessing the source of many relationships is working together on a problem or line of research. Years ago Walter Cohen (then Dean of the Grad School) commented: “First they are excited about the work and before you know it, they are excited about each other.” Under such circumstances, how do you recuse the “authority” when the couple may be 3 papers into a line of investigation.
- I am against the idea that it would be effective to allow a DGS or Chair to deal with this. Reporting should go out of house to the 6.X office. I’m not particularly worried that chairs, directors, DGS’s are untrained [they are untrained for all aspects of the job] but I don’t think colleagues would be effective protectors of the student and loyalties to colleagues would intrude despite good intentions. I think you got this exactly right by suggesting this go to a 6.X office. I would not involve a Dean or Chair unless punishment was involved and in that case, the DGS would be powerless and have no coercive ability. I agree with you Deans are very busy and should not to be involved except as a hammer if needed.
- I’m not sure prohibiting relationships between faculty and undergrads but not between faculty and graduate students is logical but I guess I buy the argument that the undergrads are younger, more naive and less experienced and need Cornell acting en loco parentis.
- Extra Senate meetings should be extremely rare.
Philosophy
After extensive discussion, my department, Philosophy, voted 6 to 3 with 2 abstentions, in favor of some version of CRP B as against CRP A, and then voted in favor of these revisions in CRP B:
Revision I:
In “The Disclosure Process,” change the list headed “When the authority is …”, to the following.
- The disclosure should be made to either the 6.X office or the individual who is responsible for the academic workplace that is shared by the faculty member and the subordinate, e.g., the director of the student’s graduate program or the chair of the faculty member’s department.
- After consulting with the 6.X Office and the Dean of the relevant College, the recipient of the disclosure develops a Recusal Plan or determines that one is unnecessary. The Recusal Plan identifies situations where participation by the faculty member is limited because of the potential for conflict of interest, thus mitigating the academic power imbalance. For example, the authority should not be involved in decision processes that determine TA assignments if the subordinate is in the TA pool. The authority must not be involved in any decisions that allocate resources to a student cohort that includes the subordinate.
- The Recusal Plan must be approved by the 6.X office. The Recusal Plan is signed by the faculty member, forwarded to the 6.X Office, and enforced by the 6.X Office and the recipient, as described in “Enforcement Procedures.” It must be renewed every year.
- The subordinate is contacted by the 6.X Office shortly after the disclosure is made to inform them of the disclosure and of relevant resources.
Revision II. Include a general statement of the undesirability of romantic or sexual relationships between faculty and graduate students within the same department or field, but not a general prohibition as in A.
My department voted for the revised plan B, 6 for, 3 against, 2 abstaining. In the course of our discussion of what version of B to support, our starting point was the resolution that the Senate considered on April 25. (Our own discussion ended earlier that afternoon.) The addition of the first sentence in 3 was favored 10 to 1. The addition of Revision II was favored, 6 for, 3 against, 2 abstaining. I myself abstained in the vote for Revision II, but was otherwise in favor. There was sentiment for greater involvement of the subordinate, but no time to develop a view of what form this should take.
Physics
Dear President Pollack, I am writing as a faculty senate representative of the Physics department to explain my vote in favor of CRP-B. Our department has caucused and I have followed up to be sure I understood positions. I have also met with my chair and that of with our sister department A&EP as well as their senator and our departmental Director of Administration.
We do not have a coherent position. That being said, I believe we generally strongly support P1 and there is good support for P2.
Also, there is definite support for the position that while consensual relationship policies as proposed violate personal freedoms, professional conduct by faculty demands that within a department, such standards should be maintained, though not through the proposed Policy 6x office. In fact, the concern was raised that Policy 6x actions kept secret from the department might in fact impede departmental investigations, in particular in the consideration of promotions.
To repeat, a number of members felt that neither CRP-A or CRP-B is appropriate since either infringed on vital personal freedom.
That being said, strong support was expressed for CRP-A.
Another concern expressed by a number of our faculty was that the rules for handling exceptions beyond existing relations was so broadly written as to be meaningless.
Importantly, it was expressed that education might be more beneficial than any new policy. In particular, young faculty need to be trained to exercise mature, professional conduct.
Finally, and very importantly in our discussions especially with AE&P, a particular instance of a faculty and graduate student consensual relationship in our department was such a positive thing that I personally feel that from this one example that application of P3 would have been tragically wrong.
Sincerely, Carl Franck
Plant Breeding and Genetics
In theory I prefer CRP-B. In practice I am concerned about its implementation. Specifically the role played by the Director of Graduate Studies. As a former DGS, my position is that DGS’s essentially have no meaningful power/authority. They cannot meaningfully enforce anything on their own. A chair also needs to be involved for any issues related to enforcement.
Plant Pathology
Although the vote represents the policy favored by most faculty in the section, there were faculty who expressed a concern that banning these relationships will not prevent these occurrences.It was suggested that a way to protect students would be to educate and empower by providing training and raise awareness. Additionally, some faculty would like to urge that enforcement plans be clarified for the official policy.
Senator-At-Large Rob Thorne (Physics)
I could support option A if relationships were banned within a “Department” or some more narrowly restricted workplace. Some graduate fields are huge and so spread out that restricting relationships within them makes no sense.
But before further restricting possible relationship options for our single faculty, Cornell needs to do much more to address one of the key causes of our faculty-student relationship problem: the incredibly small pool of single, educated professionals between the ages of 25 and 50 within a 90 mile radius of Ithaca who are not Cornell students.
Eliminating Cornell students from your dating pool is a recipe for unsatisfying relationships and loneliness. I did so when I was single from 1987 to 1994 and from 2002 to 2008. Despite putting a lot of effort into my social life, meeting appropriate unattached partners was almost impossible. There may have been 550 postdocs and 4000 Ph.D. students on campus, but a large majority were male, and most of the female students were already attached. Postdocs and grad students had far more opportunities for interaction with each other than did faculty with academically “remote” members of either group – unless the faculty member chose to hang out with grad students and postdocs, attend parties at their houses, etc. Every eating, drinking, and other establishment and every activity on or off campus was filled with undergrad and grad students. Finding the few unattached, age-appropriate people amongst these masses without trial and embarrassing error was impossible. If you did find someone interesting, their career prospects in Ithaca were often non-existent unless they were willing to become a “dual career problem”. I had a handful of single male and female colleagues in my cohort, and I would say that things didn’t work out particularly well for any of us – because the pool of non-student candidates was so tiny – compared with colleagues who found their spouses before moving to Ithaca or who married their own students.
The 550/4000 numbers are the sort of thing that married faculty with kids, for which Ithaca is a paradise, and who rarely mix with single faculty or faculty without kids, and who don’t have a goddamn clue what it’s like to be a non-alpha single male or a not-particularly-attractive or under-represented-minority single female faculty member in Ithaca, would come up with to rationalize a ban on faculty-student dating. These are the same people who thought it was more important to sync the February break with the ICSD break for their own, staff-excluded benefit than to do what was academically sensible and defensible for our students. These are the same people who argue for and distribute the resources that Cornell devotes to faculty with children and to dual career couples. These are the same people who write the work/life surveys that never ask about issues of single faculty in any meaningful, thoughtful way, and who prepare executive summaries of those surveys that never highlight the challenges of our single faculty and staff or discuss what Cornell might do to help them. Unless things have changed recently, Cornell spends less on the issues of single faculty and staff each year than it does on one dual-career couple.
Yes, Stanford adopted an even more restrictive policy than our Option A, without much faculty complaint. But if you’ve ever been single in Ithaca, you’d realize that it is completely absurd to use Stanford’s experience to rationalize what a sensible policy for Cornell in Ithaca would be. Stanford has a medical school on campus, it is in an enormous metropolitan area filled with educated young professionals, and it has a faculty club and other places where faculty can hang out without being surrounded by – and having their personal lives observed and dissected by – undergrad and grad students.
So: We should have a strong policy on workplace relationships, and especially those involving faculty and students. But that has to go hand-in-hand with major new commitments to support our single faculty and staff if we are to address the special conditions that have made faculty-student relationships so rampant at Cornell.
Comments by Those Who Support Neither CRP-A nor CRP-B
Anthropology
The current policy is sufficient and should simply be properly implemented.
Astronomy
Most of our faculty favor CRP-B over CRP-A but there are concerns about both A and B so the vote is “Neither”
There is universal support for the existing (1996) statement on relationships between students and staff. Proposition P1 in the proposed CRP’s is similarily supported
We understand that prohibited relationships will not be accommodated by way of exceptions other than those listed (“Exceptions to these … recusal”)? That list (preexisting relationship, restriction of educational/research opportunities or inducement of economic hardship) appears inadequate/incomplete/inflexible. Are additional exceptions contemplated? Over various conversations examples were suggested where applying a blanket policy might be inappropriate, e.g. the hypothetical case of older undergrads (say a 30 year old, returning to school). It seems to us that this illustrates that there must always be a route to an appeal for unforeseen circumstances. Our understanding for both A and B (assuming no supplementary exceptions) is that for all prohibited relationships, no accommodation is available via disclosure/recusal so this is an important shortcoming
Setting aside the issue of how to deal with special circumstances most faculty supported the intent of the faculty-undergrad ban
Many faculty had reservations about prohibitions for grads (those in the same field; our understanding is that neither A nor B refers to grads outside the field) that are the same as for undergrads (throughout the University). In this regard, many had personal knowledge of relationships that had “turned out well” and an expectation that mature individuals of typical age should be able to navigate the waters as long as reasonable steps were taken when situations developed (e.g. the advisor is switched). We felt that P1 (and the 1996 statement) provided the necessary rationale and guidance
We did not spend much time discussing process itself. The Office 6.X might be a reasonable way to implement the disclosure/recusal process on a institution-wide scale.
However, there is general uneasiness in empowering an administrative unit as fact-finder, judge and jury for enforcement. There is little clarity on how violations will be handled. Yes, 5 steps are mentioned but most practicalities, the nature of the process, how appeals are handled, the rights of parties, etc. are unclear. We can only imagine the worst of tenure fights and sex-related investigations rolled into one and then hidden from general view (“we do not comment on personnel issues”). This sort of endgame will not help the University’s reputation. Perhaps moving to a more public, legal framework for sanctions would simultaneously brighten the red lines for all concerned while assuring impartiality of a decision. If the violations are contested in any way then adding a lawyer and enforcing a set of rules of evidence would seem to be a minimal requirement.
Chemistry and Chemical Biology
N1
My department is closer to CRP-B as currently formulated. We distrust the reporting/enforcement procedures as proposed. Think it is a disaster in preparation.
N2
Our Department is closer to CRP-B, but have concerns about reporting and enforcement procedures.
Computer Science
Ken Birman’s comment for the public record…
My unit asked (but did not require) that I vote for CRP-B, and it was my plan to do so when I walked to the meeting. As it turned out, though, I was unable to support either version, both because of points that were made by my colleagues during the debate, and because of the failure of Miller’s amendment.
Let me be clear: I support a “clean” ban on relationships between undergraduate students and faculty. In my opinion, given the age gap and power imbalance, a student is incapable of informed consent. This is unfortunate, because I know of at least two colleagues who are married to spouses who they met while one was a faculty member and the other an undergraduate, and both are loving and healthy families. Yet I do see the case for Cornell to ban such relationships, even though this would have destroyed those two happy families. And I feel that I should err by supporting P1.
I also support a ban on any form of harassment, coercion, preferential or unfair treatment, discrimination or bias. But Cornell already has policies that addresses these concerns. The issue on the table is a proposed ban of legal, mutually consenting relationships: loving relationships, legal under state and federal law.
And finally, I support recusal in cases of consensual relationships that have any risk of a supervisory element. But Cornell also already has a policy covering consensual relationships, spelling out precisely this obligation.
What then are CRP-A and CRP-B actually doing? We have a situation in which both parties should be presumed to be of age, emotionally mature, and fully capable of informed consent. The student or post-doc might actually be older than the faculty member!
CRP-A prohibits such relationships, which I find to be unnecessary and exceptionally harsh. In large units, it makes no sense at all to arbitrarily ban loving relationships if recusal is respected.
CRP-B requires disclosure, but this violates constitutional protections on privacy (for example, LGBTQ faculty or students might be forcibly “outed”). CRP-B makes no promise of confidentiality even where there is no risk of any kind (for example, CRP-B requires disclosure even for a post-doc who never takes classes, and even if the faculty member already recuses him/herself from decisions involving that post-doc). The DoF personally promises privacy, but as the Passover story goes, “Then came a Pharoah who knew not Moses.” Some future DoF might prefer to out every story that reaches 6.X. Since 6.X is completely undefined, except for the uniquely powerful role it plays, that could happen. Miller’s language would have helped.
Miller’s proposed changes would have limited to scope of disclosure and made explicit the recusal process. The failure of Miller’s amendment leaves both aspects ambiguous.
My fear is that CRPA-A and CRP-B, without the amended language, will create a new category of “criminals”: innocent faculty members and students who find themselves in a mutually desired but private relationship, yet have valid and legal reasons to not make them public. For example, a gay couple might fear discrimination by very conservative faculty members, or a faculty member who has separated from his or her spouse and has started a new relationship might prefer not to make that personal situation obvious to colleagues. Such individuals have a legal right to privacy, and yet under both CRP-A and CRP-B would face career-ending sanctions if denounced.
This is too high a price in terms of lost privacy protections! The core issue is described as anxiety by the CRP authors concerning “preferential or unfair treatment, discrimination, or bias”. Yet we have two policies covering that, already on the books. Were the authors unaware of this? They seemingly concealed one of them (the existing consensual relations policy), until Professor Liberwicz read our faculty handbook and found that policy. The other was never mentioned by Ms. Waymack or on the web site, although the DoF spoke about this issue of abusive behavior in the March meeting, making it clear in his slides that there was no need for a new policy to protect against abusive, coersive, harassing or other inappropriate conduct. The study authors seem to be convinced, purely from anecdotal evidence known to the 10 or so graduate students (self-selected) who participated that such problems are rampant. I very much doubt that this is the case, and would be saddened to see Cornell set a basic right to the side for such a subjective and empirically unsupported reason.
I feel that there is no choice but to override my own unit’s preferences and to vote no on both CRP-A and CRP-B.
Electrical and Computer Engineering
I sought input from my unit, the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. I got only two responses, one favoring CRP-A and the other not clearly favoring either plan. I warned members of my unit that if I didn’t hear a clear consensus from them I would vote my personal preference, which is Neither, so I did. Below I’ll attempt to explain my vote.
Both faculty members and students check some of their legal rights and privileges, along with some of their right to privacy, “at the university gate,” to paraphrase a famous Supreme Court opinion. Most would agree that among those rights left behind are a faculty member’s right to take up consensually with a student situated within the faculty member’s suitably defined radius of authority. Similarly, a student leaves behind the right to take up consensually with a faculty member whose authority radius encompasses the student. Thus, contrary to what one faculty member said at our most
recent Senate meeting, students’ behavior, as well as faculty members’, must take into account certain restrictions.
Most would also agree that our goal is to formulate a policy on consensual relationships that minimizes what community members must leave at the university gate subject to the constraint that the university qua workplace and learning environment functions in a healthy fashion. What rights and privileges besides the two examples cited in the preceding paragraph must we require community members to renounce? I’m tempted to answer “None”, but on reflection I answer, “None, but”. Here are some specific comments.
- The committee’s presentation included lots of Venn diagrams and undirected graphs with socially awkward links. Infnitely many more such diagrams and graphs exist. Consider, for example, a relationship between a faculty member and a powerful donor alum’s child. We can’t dream up every touchy situation that might arise, and we need to resist cherry-picking touchy situations to buttress policy choices.
- I’m comfortable discussing some kind of disclosure and recusal mechanism for relationships that fall in grey areas outside a faculty member’s radius of authority, but I’m not happy with what the committee came up with. That said, I have no better ideas, and any such mechanism would constitute a serious invasion of privacy. A necessary invasion? Something else community members need to leave behind at the university gate? I’m not convinced, but I’m willing to listen.
- The blanket ugrad prohibition, as I said in an earlier Senate meeting looks like a miscegenation law to me, and the reasoning behind it is suspect. The committee attempts to make an academic case distinguishing grad-faculty and ugrad-faculty relationships, and I don’t buy the argument, which asserts essentially that a faculty member’s radius of authority encompasses all undergrads but only certain grads. Cases in point: One of my ECE faculty colleagues pursued a full-fledged minor in art history while studying for his Ph.D. at Stanford. I think it’s more likely that one of ECE’s Ph.D. students would take a course in the history of architecture than an architecture or Hotel undergrad would take a course in ECE. Honestly, I think the ugrad prohibition is there because of someone’s idea of what’s creepy, and the retrofittted academic justification doesn’t cut it. One of the faculty comments about the ugrad ban on the Website revealed what people are really thinking, to wit:
Like all bans on human relations that have been enacted over the millennia, I expect this one to be violated. In some circumstances I would hope that such violations would lead to dismissal. In others e.g., a 25 year old assistant professor dating an undergrad outside her or his field I would expect accommodation.
That’s what the ugrad ban is really about, in my view.
I acknowledge the difficulty of the committee’s task. I also acknowledge, unlike some other Senators who spoke at our most recent meeting, that the existing policy is insufficient. I appreciate the committee’s (and Charlie van Loan’s) excellent work assembling the supporting material, collecting faculty comments, and making a complicated issue as comprehensible as I could imagine making it. Kudos to the committee, even though neither option available on the ballot got my vote.
English
Keep the policy that is now in place.
ILR
N1
I am against CRP-A and CRP-B. These proposals define all potential consensual relationships as coercive. This strikes me as overly broad and potentially unenforceable. Further, I think the current policy strikes an appropriate balance for choice and protecting students from coercion. However, I do not believe the current policy has ever been implemented. At ILR, for example, I do not recall our educating faculty and students. In fact, it is clear that many do not know we have a current policy. So I feel that before creating a new policy and office we need to do a better job of implementing the current policy.
N2
The current Cornell policy is appropriate and adequate:
- The current policy recognizes that “romantic or sexual relationships between students and persons in positions of authority compromise the relationship between students and the university.”
- The current policy identifies the areas where an individual should not exercise authority while simultaneously being romantically or sexually involved with a student.
- The policy respects the right of individuals to enter consensual romantic or sexual relationships, as long as the relationship is not prohibited by the policy.
- The policy can be supplemented by increased education (classes, workshops, etc.) that raise awareness about issues of sex and sexuality and about making conscious choices of whether to enter romantic and sexual relationships.
The proposed new policies are overly broad and intrusive:
- The total ban on romantic or sexual relationships between faculty and undergraduate students treats all consensual relationships as inherently coercive.
- The total ban on sexual or romantic relationships between faculty members and graduate or professional students affiliated with the same graduate field or degree program also treats all consensual relationships as inherently coercive.
- Total bans prohibit individuals from making their own choices of whether to enter a consensual romantic or sexual relationship.
- The required disclosure of permitted consensual relationships invades the privacy of the individuals in the relationship.
- Enforcement of overly broad total bans and disclosure requirements creates a threat of the most draconian sanctions, including discharge.
- Rather than adopting overly broad total bans, Cornell can retain its current policy supplemented with increased education (classes, workshops, etc.) that raise awareness about issues of sex and sexuality and about making conscious choices of whether to enter romantic and sexual relationships.
The proposed new policies do not provide for due process protections of faculty charged with violating the policies.
Johnson Graduate School of Management
It is offensive to our students and violates their basic liberties of free association.
This is probably the worst piece of legislation I have seen during my long tenure at the Senate. It is intrusive, paternalistic, moralistic, and unnecessary. It infantilizes the students, and attempts to control their sex lives. Our students are not children. They are adults, and they deserve to be treated as adults to make their own decisions about their social lives. University has no business telling them who they should love and who they should consort with. Any exceptions to this general principle has to pass a high burden of a compelling university interest, not just a morality pronouncement. See item 3 below why that burden has not been met.
It is unnecessary.
This proposal is a solution in search of a problem. There is no evidence of wide spread romantic involvement between students and faculty. In fact, exactly the opposite. The senators are flattering themselves if they think that undergraduates are even remotely interested in romantic relationships with them. Any rare exception does not deserve such a controversial and blanket ban. Actually, it is likely to backfire, and lead to more of such banned relationships by the students that are offended by such intrusion into their private lives. More importantly, this issue was brought before the senate last year. Senators spoke at length about these problems, and voted overwhelmingly against a ban. Why is it necessary to bring the same proposal with no changes, but with some added verbiage, before the same Senate?
It solves the wrong problem.
What is the compelling argument that justifies such intrusion into students’ sex lives? The only relevant issue for the university is conflict of interest, and it should be construed as narrowly as possible to avoid interfering with the students’ basic freedom of association. The current policy does this reasonably well already and can be modified slightly to make it even better. A conflict of interest arises when there is a romantic relationship between a supervisor and a supervisee, as in someone grading, evaluating, judging, or promoting someone else. This would include professors and TA’s versus students in their classes; advisors versus their advisees; graduate committees versus the graduate students they supervise, senior faculty versus junior faculty they evaluate for promotion, and administrative staff versus the employees they manage. The current policy identifies these real conflicts of interest, and requires disclosure, and possibly recusal. The mere possibility of a future conflict of interest is an unacceptable and unnecessarily intrusive standard, and it would be impossible to precisely define it. Any college student anywhere in the world could possibly come to Cornell and take a course here, and become one of our students in the future. That would make the whole world a banned population if we need to be consistent. More importantly, the proposal ignores the most egregious and the most common occurrence of conflict of interest. That is when a senior faculty member pressures the school to hire a spouse as a junior faculty member or lecturer in the same department, and then even serve in the committees to evaluate that spouse. That is the real problem we face in practically every department of the university. The complete omission of this issue from the proposal suggests that the committee is more concerned with making a moral and political statement about age-different relationships, rather than their real task of enacting policy that protects the institution and its proper functioning. The arbitrary distinction drawn between undergraduate and graduate students provides further evidence of such obsession by the committee with age and with the morality of romantic relationships, rather than university’s interests.
It will be difficult to implement.
The proposal will be costly to implement both financially and emotionally. Such a comprehensive ban will require investigating the sex lives of students, faculty and staff. Since these are consensual relationships, the parties will not complain. The complaints will come from third parties with grudges, or as hearsay and gossip. The university will have to create a whole new bureaucracy to investigate such complaints, or it will have to reduce the burden of proof to accepting hearsay and gossip as evidence. Either approach will damage the reputation of the university considerably. Consider a hypothetical case of a ph.d. student in another university married to an undergrad. He gets hired as a faculty member at Cornell. His wife would like to transfer to Cornell to be with her husband. Are we going to reject them? Force them to get a divorce? Or are we going to make exceptions on a case by case basis, on the basis of someone’s moral judgment about relationships, when they started, and how serious they are? And what happens when people challenge those moral judgments, and even file law suits? That is not a rational way to run a university.
L. V. Orman, Professor Cornell University, Johnson Graduate School of Management
Mathematics
Cornell already has a policy. I agree with the views voiced by other senators in this direction. To me it covers the essential,
“No member of the university community should simultaneously be romantically or sexually involved with a student whom he or she teaches, advises, coaches, or supervises in any way”.
My colleague senators made a number of suggestions about this; I agree, and won’t repeat them.
If I were to vote for A or B, I prefer A which spells out rules about relationships between graduate students and faculty in the same field. I am uneasy about the attempt to cover too many contingencies.
Our department was split roughly in half on plan A. One faculty mentioned (intended as a comment to the committee) “Dan: I find the language very loose. I know of no definition of romance. It is often indistinguishable from respectful friendship.”
Physics
I agree with Risa. She said it right. Keep the University away from it.
Psychology
Faculty members within Psychology had a range of opinions on the two Options, including some who were strongly in support of each of them as written. I found the two options not flexible enough in potential responses, and so strongly support adding to the proposed options provisions for appeal of P1, P2, and P3. I can think of exceptional cases that might apply to each of the prohibitions and would like to see a mechanism in which the participants can request an exemption. I also found the two options not clearly written with respect to how allegations are handled (for example, if received years afterward). Lastly, I believe that input of the chair is primary and essential for assessing and resolving all relationship issues within a department, including those involving romantic attachments, rather than an HR office.
Romance Studies
The comments from members of my Department, both orally and in writing, expressed support for the idea that no one who is in a relationship should be in a position to supervise or otherwise evaluate the other person’s work, recognizing the potential problems that such relationships might entail for our academic communities in general. However, there is a sense that this policy, like others before it, moves quickly and mistakenly from relationship to harassment, confusing these in dangerous ways. Everyone supports the full enforcement –even the strengthening– of current sexual harassment policies, but no one wishes to see this confused or even paralleled to relationships. Most importantly, we see these prohibitions (!) as establishing a very dangerous precedent in terms of the university regulating the private lives of its faculty, students, and employees.
