10 ms·

So he started a relationship with a student after she had mostly finished, but hadn't walked to get her diploma yet, and he issued her grades during that time t

by cma 6y ago

So he started a relationship with a student after she had mostly finished, but hadn't walked to get her diploma yet, and he issued her grades during that time that were considered perfunctory. Every professor knows tenure protects from almost everything except sleeping with a student, especially if you are their advisor or involved in their committee. Before revealing he had a relationship with his student, he gives a bunch of innuendo that he was only fired because he mentioned opposing some kind of affirmative action in a hiring committee, but he doesn't prove that was why and doesn't give the committee "due process" to defend themselves. The vast majority of people in this country are hired at will and don't get anything like a long trial to stay on and are subject arbitrary firing with no real due process. It is the norm in employment rather than a new trend (unless you are unionized), but professors have just been protected from it by tenure. But it isn't a new trend that tenure doesn't protect you if you sleep with or have a relationship with a student. It's the one thing everyone with tenure knows isn't covered by tenure.

itronitron 6y ago
Title IX is some weird shit though, and I doubt that any US company holds itself to the same crazy standard. For example, under Title IX if your colleague shows up with a black eye one day and says they got it from their roommate then you are required to report it to the university.
- cma 6y ago
  Many (if not most?) companies will fire over a relationship between a boss and a subordinate, or order them to work at separate locations and not be in either's chain of command. He resigned so we don't know how it would have even played out. The process sounds kafkaesque in his telling, but most people subject to at-will barely get any process at all when they are fired.
  - csa 6y ago
    > Many (if not most?) companies will fire over a relationship between a boss and a subordinate, or order them to work at separate locations and not be in either's chain of command. This may be the rule at a lot of places, but it is very rarely implemented, and these relationships are typically just overlooked.
    - cma 6y ago
      I don't know if I agree (just from personally knowing a case where two people in a relationship formed at work were sent to different stores, not any exhaustive data), but an official rule that is rarely and or selectively enforced doesn't exactly sound like due process in the at-will workplace as a counter argument to the level of due process in a university to a tenured employee.
      - csa 6y ago
        My anecdata is dozens of these relationships with nothing done, and one with the manager being officially warned and moved to a different department. The scandalous thing about the case in which something was done was that he was supervising both his wife and his lover. He ended up divorcing his wife and marrying his lover. That was the level it took to get an official warning. He retired a few years later, with no negative impact on his career (he was promoted after the incident). Do firings happen over these types of relationships? Sure. Is that the modal response? Very much no in my experience.
  - itronitron 6y ago
    How many companies have you worked at that would start an investigation based on an employee arriving on Monday with a bruise resulting from an extracurricular activity over the weekend?
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      Few, but then universities don't do that either.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    "It's even worse elsewhere" is no justification for injustice. That's horrific. There's no "subordinate" here. The person he dated 12 years ago isn't a member of the institution and wasn't during the relationship.
- sneak 6y ago
  This sort of makes sense. The organization-as-organization can't address things via the defined processes if the input data doesn't flow up into the command center from the satellite nerves (in this case, the individual staff members). This closes the loophole where someone could report something casually to a faculty member, and nothing happens, which is a tragically common problem.
  - itronitron 6y ago
    If everything reported casually gets reported formally, then people can no longer have casual conversations. What strikes me as overreach about the black eye scenario (which is used in orientation/training for University staff as an example of something that needs to be reported under Title IX) is that a) the black eye is the result of some type of abuse and b) a non-University relationship suddenly falls under the purview of Title IX just by being mentioned to a University employee.
  - sukilot 6y ago
    It doesn't make sense when any data is assumed to be proof of guilt without any evidence.
dj_mc_merlin 6y ago
> The vast majority of people in this country are hired at will and don't get anything like a long trial to stay on and are subject arbitrary firing with no real due process. Is that good?
- cma 6y ago
  I think union protection is good and can give more redress, but lack of it certainly isn't a new trend.
heavyset_go 6y ago
> So he started a relationship with a student after she had mostly finished, but hadn't walked to get her diploma yet, and he issued her grades during that time that were considered perfunctory. Every professor knows tenure protects from almost everything except sleeping with a student, especially if you are their advisor or involved in their committee. I have a few teachers and professors in my family, and get to hear stories about tenured professors and the antics they get into. According to them, there's one thing that tenured professors know they can't do and that is sleeping with their students. > A bunch of innuendo that he was only fired over it because he mentioned opposing some kind of affirmative action in a hiring committee, but he doesn't prove that was why and doesn't give the committee "due process" to defend themselves. The author ran to a rag that would publish his story without doing any investigative journalism behind it. He knew the audience would take what he claims at face value, and low and behold, that is what's happening.
- cge 6y ago
  It really is the one, universal rule that is repeatedly pointed out to career academics, from when you start TAing onward: do not sleep with your students. This rule has existed for an enormous length of time, and exists at essentially all universities. It so continually repeated that its repetition, even to the exclusion of pretty much anything else that might be useful, like training about actual teaching, is a common joke. This isn't even just to protect the student, and I expect that the rule was originally developed when universities didn't care about the potential for the student being abused: it also causes a potential for unfairness to everyone else, especially when the relationship is clandestine. Academia is somewhat unusual in that relationships within research communities and universities need to be allowed, are rather common and accepted, and often even need to be accommodated by universities. Strict restrictions on them at some universities in the past actually caused serious problems at times. Many situations are accepted, so long as they are appropriately handled, even when there are close professional connections involved, and even, sometimes, between faculty and graduate students, when the student isn't their student. But sleeping with your students has always been a deadly sin in academia. And this appears to be a case of someone trying to argue that, while he slept with his student, she wasn't really his student at the time. That's a difficult argument to make.
throwaway894345 6y ago
> Before revealing he had a relationship with his student, he gives a bunch of innuendo that he was only fired because he mentioned opposing some kind of affirmative action in a hiring committee, but he doesn't prove that was why and doesn't give the committee "due process" to defend themselves. IANAL, but I’m pretty sure not speculating about someone’s motives (and indeed not even identifying them) in some piece of Internet criticism is different than sentencing them without due process...
- cma 6y ago
  He resigned before exhausting appeal, he wasn't sentenced. And losing your job isn't criminal sentencing. Most people in the US work at will and can be fired for almost any reason or even no reason at all. In contrast he got paid to do nothing for 14 months. He painted things as Kafka-esque, but for a typical worker it would be a huge improvement over arbitrary firing for any reason. Maybe we should have more due process for losing your job, but his situation is so much better than what the vast majority are at risk of, in terms of protections, that it should be near the lowest priority to worry about.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    I’m not arguing that he was sentenced criminally or otherwise, and poor negotiating conditions for other workers doesn’t excuse what is by all appearances abhorrent behavior by the provost and others. I hate that any time someone identifies a problem, some people come out of the woodwork to suggest that we shouldn’t do anything about it because someone somewhere has it worse. We can strengthen worker’s rights and abhor this gross abuse of power.
    - cma 6y ago
      It isn't that someone somewhere has it worse. It is the norm in America. We should be more concerned about getting fairer policies in place for people much farther down Maslow's hierarchy of needs, who can be fired arbitrarily rather than having to do something like sleep with a student and argue a technicality and in the end be able to resign and not actually be fired. They don't get 14 months paid time off or a trial of any kind.

by cma 6y ago

itronitron 6y ago

Title IX is some weird shit though, and I doubt that any US company holds itself to the same crazy standard. For example, under Title IX if your colleague shows up with a black eye one day and says they got it from their roommate then you are required to report it to the university.

cma 6y ago
Many (if not most?) companies will fire over a relationship between a boss and a subordinate, or order them to work at separate locations and not be in either's chain of command. He resigned so we don't know how it would have even played out. The process sounds kafkaesque in his telling, but most people subject to at-will barely get any process at all when they are fired.
- csa 6y ago
  > Many (if not most?) companies will fire over a relationship between a boss and a subordinate, or order them to work at separate locations and not be in either's chain of command. This may be the rule at a lot of places, but it is very rarely implemented, and these relationships are typically just overlooked.
  - cma 6y ago
    I don't know if I agree (just from personally knowing a case where two people in a relationship formed at work were sent to different stores, not any exhaustive data), but an official rule that is rarely and or selectively enforced doesn't exactly sound like due process in the at-will workplace as a counter argument to the level of due process in a university to a tenured employee.
    - csa 6y ago
      My anecdata is dozens of these relationships with nothing done, and one with the manager being officially warned and moved to a different department. The scandalous thing about the case in which something was done was that he was supervising both his wife and his lover. He ended up divorcing his wife and marrying his lover. That was the level it took to get an official warning. He retired a few years later, with no negative impact on his career (he was promoted after the incident). Do firings happen over these types of relationships? Sure. Is that the modal response? Very much no in my experience.
- itronitron 6y ago
  How many companies have you worked at that would start an investigation based on an employee arriving on Monday with a bruise resulting from an extracurricular activity over the weekend?
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    Few, but then universities don't do that either.
- sukilot 6y ago
  "It's even worse elsewhere" is no justification for injustice. That's horrific. There's no "subordinate" here. The person he dated 12 years ago isn't a member of the institution and wasn't during the relationship.
sneak 6y ago
This sort of makes sense. The organization-as-organization can't address things via the defined processes if the input data doesn't flow up into the command center from the satellite nerves (in this case, the individual staff members). This closes the loophole where someone could report something casually to a faculty member, and nothing happens, which is a tragically common problem.
- itronitron 6y ago
  If everything reported casually gets reported formally, then people can no longer have casual conversations. What strikes me as overreach about the black eye scenario (which is used in orientation/training for University staff as an example of something that needs to be reported under Title IX) is that a) the black eye is the result of some type of abuse and b) a non-University relationship suddenly falls under the purview of Title IX just by being mentioned to a University employee.
- sukilot 6y ago
  It doesn't make sense when any data is assumed to be proof of guilt without any evidence.

dj_mc_merlin 6y ago

> The vast majority of people in this country are hired at will and don't get anything like a long trial to stay on and are subject arbitrary firing with no real due process. Is that good?

cma 6y ago
I think union protection is good and can give more redress, but lack of it certainly isn't a new trend.

heavyset_go 6y ago

> So he started a relationship with a student after she had mostly finished, but hadn't walked to get her diploma yet, and he issued her grades during that time that were considered perfunctory. Every professor knows tenure protects from almost everything except sleeping with a student, especially if you are their advisor or involved in their committee. I have a few teachers and professors in my family, and get to hear stories about tenured professors and the antics they get into. According to them, there's one thing that tenured professors know they can't do and that is sleeping with their students. > A bunch of innuendo that he was only fired over it because he mentioned opposing some kind of affirmative action in a hiring committee, but he doesn't prove that was why and doesn't give the committee "due process" to defend themselves. The author ran to a rag that would publish his story without doing any investigative journalism behind it. He knew the audience would take what he claims at face value, and low and behold, that is what's happening.

cge 6y ago
It really is the one, universal rule that is repeatedly pointed out to career academics, from when you start TAing onward: do not sleep with your students. This rule has existed for an enormous length of time, and exists at essentially all universities. It so continually repeated that its repetition, even to the exclusion of pretty much anything else that might be useful, like training about actual teaching, is a common joke. This isn't even just to protect the student, and I expect that the rule was originally developed when universities didn't care about the potential for the student being abused: it also causes a potential for unfairness to everyone else, especially when the relationship is clandestine. Academia is somewhat unusual in that relationships within research communities and universities need to be allowed, are rather common and accepted, and often even need to be accommodated by universities. Strict restrictions on them at some universities in the past actually caused serious problems at times. Many situations are accepted, so long as they are appropriately handled, even when there are close professional connections involved, and even, sometimes, between faculty and graduate students, when the student isn't their student. But sleeping with your students has always been a deadly sin in academia. And this appears to be a case of someone trying to argue that, while he slept with his student, she wasn't really his student at the time. That's a difficult argument to make.

throwaway894345 6y ago

> Before revealing he had a relationship with his student, he gives a bunch of innuendo that he was only fired because he mentioned opposing some kind of affirmative action in a hiring committee, but he doesn't prove that was why and doesn't give the committee "due process" to defend themselves. IANAL, but I’m pretty sure not speculating about someone’s motives (and indeed not even identifying them) in some piece of Internet criticism is different than sentencing them without due process...

cma 6y ago
He resigned before exhausting appeal, he wasn't sentenced. And losing your job isn't criminal sentencing. Most people in the US work at will and can be fired for almost any reason or even no reason at all. In contrast he got paid to do nothing for 14 months. He painted things as Kafka-esque, but for a typical worker it would be a huge improvement over arbitrary firing for any reason. Maybe we should have more due process for losing your job, but his situation is so much better than what the vast majority are at risk of, in terms of protections, that it should be near the lowest priority to worry about.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  I’m not arguing that he was sentenced criminally or otherwise, and poor negotiating conditions for other workers doesn’t excuse what is by all appearances abhorrent behavior by the provost and others. I hate that any time someone identifies a problem, some people come out of the woodwork to suggest that we shouldn’t do anything about it because someone somewhere has it worse. We can strengthen worker’s rights and abhor this gross abuse of power.
  - cma 6y ago
    It isn't that someone somewhere has it worse. It is the norm in America. We should be more concerned about getting fairer policies in place for people much farther down Maslow's hierarchy of needs, who can be fired arbitrarily rather than having to do something like sleep with a student and argue a technicality and in the end be able to resign and not actually be fired. They don't get 14 months paid time off or a trial of any kind.