Do professors have a constitutional right to date students? Professor Paul Abramson thinks so. Abramson is a 57 year old psychologist at the University of California at Los Angeles. His university, like many others, bans romance between professors and students. Abrahamson is about to publish a book Romance in the Ivory Tower that faults such policies as moralistic and outdated.
"For me this is not an issue of who's sleeping with whom," Abramson said in an interview in the current issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. "It's an issue about where the power to make the choice resides." According to Abramson, the Ninth Amendment to the U.S. constitution protects what he calls "the right to romance." Intrigued, I picked up my copy of the U.S. Constitution and perused it. No such right. I tried reading the document standing on my head. Still nothing. I squeezed lemon juice and held the paper up to the light. Gee, the right to romance didn't appear anywhere.
Abramson points out that the Ninth Amendment reserves all rights not earlier specified in the document to the people. So do I have a Ninth Amendment right to take drugs? To travel without a passport? To conduct my own foreign policy? How is the right to romance different from these? Abramson goes into high lyrical gear. "We make choices over things that are exceedingly intimate: who to love, what to believe in, the character of our writing and speech. These are part of the fundamental nature of who we are." Abramson aruges that sexuality, like speech and religion, is constitutive of our identity. Yes, but speech and religion are specifically protected in the First Amendment. If the founders agreed with Abramson, why didn't they remember to add, "Congress shall make no law restricting the right to romance?"
The answer, I suppose, is because the founders hadn't listened to too many Peter, Paul and Mary songs. The founders seem to have recognized that sexuality is fraught with the potential both for personal exploitation and social disorder. I don't have any problem with a professor dating a graduate student. But when a professor romances a student in his or her own class, the situation changes. Moreover, how would you as a parent feel if your eighteen-year-old freshman daughter began a sexual relationship with a 57 year old psychology professor? My point is that these situations can become extremely complicated, with lots of competing considerations at stake, and that's why they cannot be settled through the absolutism of "rights."
If professors had a constitutional "right to romance," then a student's refusal to sleep with them would constitute a violation of their rights. The whole concept is a legal absurdity. Professor Abramson is certainly entitled to cruise the bars of Los Angeles looking for love if he wants to. I just think should leave his copy of the Constitution behind.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 4)
31. My ex-husband's english teacher at Texas State University, had no problem asking him on a date when he was my fiance. She also had no problem dating a previous boyfriend of mine - this was prior to my involvement with him (apparently we shared the same taste in men although mine might have been said to be a bit more age appropriate). Both students were taking her class at the time of her overtures. I reported her solicitation of my fiance (I was PISSED, I mean in a University of 19,000 students she not only can't stay away from the kids but this was the second time with one of my guys!). Anyway, the English dean did nothing. My fiance turned husband later became a student professor at the same University. Faculty functions were a little, err... strained within the English department whenever she and I had to share the same space.
Sydney at 2:08PM on Aug 22nd 2007
32. Richter, you are mad cruel. How would you care to be contstantly referred to as 'Reichstag'. Grow up with the Ayatollah inference and knock it to frig' off...
my oldest daughter was 17 as a Freshman in college and if her Professor even asked her to dinner I would have beat hell out of him. He is supposed to represent an authoritarian in the student's schooling, not some cool dude who is able to use that authority to date young students. STUDENTS.
they should get over themselves and date someone their own age instead of abusive acts of blatant sexual predatory behavior with our daughters and sons.
rhodalee at 2:15PM on Aug 22nd 2007
33. I think it is less about the random 18yo and 57yo prof dating, and more about the 24yo grad student and the 30yo just got their doctorate newer prof. At my university there are several outstanding newer profs that are under the age of 30, when you consider that by the time they are seniors, most students are 22/23 if they did it right, the age difference becomes a non-issue and the only issue is whether or not it is YOUR student or YOUR prof.
Shannon at 2:19PM on Aug 22nd 2007
34. At any rate, my anecdote aside, I think that this is not so much a constitutional question, as a question of ethics. Teachers have the ethical right to date their students like therapists have the right to date their patients and attorneys have the right to date their clients.
Sure, you have the right to date any consenting adult. And the intstitution for which you work or the board holding your license has the right to fire or censure you for ethics violations. I hope the fine English Department of Texas State University takes note.
Sydney at 2:23PM on Aug 22nd 2007
35. HOW else can an old Jewish Professor get some nooky from a hot blonde Shiksa girl who would normally recoil in horror from him? Answer classic pyschological TRANSFERENCE! Of course these old gross professors want to exploit young females on campus who, for a brief time, will subconsciously trade their young bodies for a tutorial with the old man who is grading their exams and papers. It makes me want to vomit that someone would actually take this dirty old man seriously.
JOHN at 3:44PM on Aug 22nd 2007
36. Although I have problems with Dinesh's spin and overly simplified reasoning, I don't condone teachers having relationships with their students. Although the constitution may protect our right to associate with and engage in relationships with others, educational institutions also have the right to protect their students and professional environment. Accordingly, a rule prohibiting teacher from engaging in relationships with students, that would be otherwise lawful, is eminently appropriate. The risk to students and the integrity of the institution justifies such a rule.
Rob at 4:18PM on Aug 22nd 2007
37. Does poster #18 wears a dirndlkleid? Quick I'll have an elbschloss bier ... BITTE
Mo at 5:54PM on Aug 22nd 2007
38. TO ENSURE FAIRNESS IN GRADING EXAMS, THE PROFESSOR WOULD HAVE TO BE IN LOVE WITH THE ENTIRE CLASS! DUH!
SARG at 6:12PM on Aug 22nd 2007
39. As a former undergraduate and graduate student, it was my experience that co-ed/professor dating always occured between female students and male professors. It resulted in no small amount of eye-rolling on the part of male students, who felt short-changed, but little more ill effects occured as far as I could see.
Mike at 6:17PM on Aug 22nd 2007
40. From a christian perspective...1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 18 Flee fornication=premarital sexual relations. Dating sets one up for failure. It teaches a person to go from one person to the next, non commitment. It permits a person to get his/her heart broken time after time until the right person is found. I don't agree with dating at all! It is of the world. Courtship is of God. It is my personal belief that a relationship is supposed to be spiritual first, emotional second, and the consumation of the body last in a relationship. Spirit, Soul, Body in that order. People put the cart before the horse so to speak. They are meeting up, sleeping with one another on the first date! How absurd is that? The person doesn't even KNOW the person...how risky is that? Why put yourself out there to have your heart broken like that with a stranger? In defense of the professor...not ALL students are young, and if the student is an older student, not in ANY of his classes, why not allow him to court the woman?
Bridget at 7:05PM on Aug 22nd 2007
41. Dinesh D'Souza on the side of political correctness!?! Is this a sign of the Last Days?
OK, the reason the framers of the Constitution did't put anything about sex and romance in the document is that, for them, those things were not their problems but were to be dealt with on the State and local level.
But let's now turn the question around: what if a student wants to date a professor? Most college freshmen are 18 years of age which means that they can vote for President or any other office and they can also volunteer to serve in the military and risk their lives and limbs for their country or for the greater glory of neocon delusions as the case maybe. But they can't date who they want to date?
Adult human beings, that is, human beings age 18 or older, unless suffering some sort of brain damage that renders them mentally deficient, ought to be able to date anybody they want to date. Case closed.
emelpe at 7:38PM on Aug 22nd 2007
42. Bridget #41 - you have some issues.
Please tell me what is the difference between "courting" and "dating"...Hey Bridget, it is 2007, not 1807!
You seem very pre-occupied with what folks do on their dates - especially if sex is involved. Last time I checked, we live in a free country.
David S. at 8:17PM on Aug 22nd 2007
43. simple conflict of interest; colleges should just say no. Institutions have rights too. I'm a prof., btw. I agree with DD.
michael white at 8:46PM on Aug 22nd 2007
44. To Lawren Cecerf (#29):
In the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that interracial couples have a 'Constitutional Right' to marry, the Court was citing their inherent right as human beings (and as citizens) that is granted to them by the courts current understanding of the Constitution. That is to say that their racial status makes the no less equal under the law and thus has no bearing on their worthiness to marry.
Conversely, what is at issue in this article is whether a private institution--or indeed anyone--can govern behavior of persons currently engaged for other purposes. Indeed it can. For instance, nobody is saying that persons over the age of 21 cannot consume alcohol or drive a car. But for persons to do both at the same time constitutes a crime.
To that end, nobody is saying that the Professor cannot date/sleep with/even marry students. Just that he cannot date students of the college in which he works, while he works there and they are enrolled in that institution. Sounds fair enough.
Keith J. Mohrhoff at 8:07AM on Aug 23rd 2007
45. Puritanical "DICK" Nixon maintained a TRICKY illicit goings on with a young vixen across the highseas! DICK ... did WHAT?!! Hehehe
Mo at 10:15AM on Aug 23rd 2007