YSU needs a strict policy on faculty-student dating

Youngstown State University, like other institutions of higher learning across the country, is caught up in a debate over the age-old issue of faculty members' having a nonprofessional relationship with students. The question that looms is this: Does dating your student flunk the ethics test?
Frankly, we are hard-pressed to understand why the question is causing so much consternation on college campuses. The answer is clear: Not only does it flunk the ethics test, it flunks the commonsense test, the professor as a role model test and the student as a captive test.
In other words, there is only one policy that Youngstown State University should adopt, and that is to ban all faculty-student dating.
The distinction that is being made on some campuses between a faculty member who has direct supervision over a student and a faculty member who has no classroom contact with the student is nothing more than an attempt to parse the issue.
Ohio Northern University's faculty handbook dictates that "faculty and staff members should not have sexual relations with students to whom they are not married." That's a concise policy statement that seems to draw a clear line between faculty members and students (though it would seem to allow for the possibility of a celibate courtship involving a teacher and student).
There's a good reason for a strict policy: It takes care of all the what-ifs that have accompanied the debates around the country. What if the professor isn't supervising the student? What if the two are close to the same age? What if the student is the one who initiates the relationship? And on and on.
Exploitation
Indeed, during a recent discussion at YSU on professional conduct and sexual harassment, Dr. John Christian-Smith IV, a professor of philosophy and religious studies, delved into the issue of exploitation. Smith noted that the American Association of University Professors suggests that a student could be exploited if having a sexual relationship with a faculty member who teaches or evaluates the student. Such a situation makes voluntary consent by a student suspect, he said.
But the professor also added that there is a question of who is exploiting whom. Though faculty members have the power of evaluation, he explained, students have the power of seduction.
And Jamie Anderson, secretary of the YSU chapter of the Student National Organization for Women, raised another important point: "I think it [a faculty-student relationship] takes away all sense of fairness, not just for the person in the relationship, but for the entire class."
Dr. Gabriel Palmer-Fernandez was absolutely right in observing that public images of universities are at stake in such situations.
Interaction between faculty members and students is important, but there must be a line that cannot be crossed. At YSU, that line should be a strict policy that prohibits a romantic or sexual relationship between faculty and students.