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Academic norms around romantic relationships with power imbalances?

In our June “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks:

I have a question about academic norms around romantic relationships involving power imbalances, especially in the U.S., though I would also be interested in how this differs across countries. Clear cases are easy: most of us would say that a professor should not pursue a student, or that a TA should not pursue someone currently in their class, because of the power imbalance. But in practice, many cases seem much more ambiguous.

For example, if a PhD student is over thirty and has no research overlap with a professor in the same department, would it still be inappropriate for that professor to pursue them? Or if a TA repeatedly invites students in the class to meals or private conversations in a way that seems intended to build romantic intimacy, but never explicitly says so, and then confesses only after the course ends, is that acceptable? Another case: if a married professor privately and repeatedly tells a female student that he and his wife have no real emotional relationship and that he remains married only for the children, but never explicitly proposes an affair or sends sexually explicit messages, is that still inappropriate?

I am trying to understand how academic communities judge these gray areas, especially when the person’s intentions are never explicitly stated. (I should add that I am not asking this as a purely abstract question. I am currently one of the students in situations like these, and my friends and I have repeatedly encountered similar incidents.)

Thoughts from readers?

Posted in

23 responses to “Academic norms around romantic relationships with power imbalances?”

  1. Anonymous

    I’ve been one of the students in situations like these. It sucks, and I’m sorry that it’s happening. It shouldn’t be.

    Some (most? all?) of these cases seem to me like breaches not only of academic norms, but also…norms of being a decent person. That is: there’s a question about how to parse the ‘power imbalance’ dynamic (and in all these cases I think there are relevant academic/professional norms being violated), but even power imbalances aside, in all these cases the person is additionally just being a creep even before we adjudicate power-imbalance.

    Like, the married professor privately and repeatedly talking about his marriage problems to a female student? Super inappropriate. And it’s super inappropriate for him to talk that way to any woman who isn’t a close friend (assuming he’s straight). It’s a standard and sleazy way for married folks to ‘test the waters’ to see if they can cadge an affair, or line up another partner, before they leave the security of their spouse. Ugh. I get that the question is about academic norms specifically, in particular what ‘student’ adds, but it bothers me to think that we even have to get to the level of parsing out the ‘power imbalance’ topic before recognizing that this guy is a creep.

    Similar reactions to the other cases. Power imbalances can be complicated to analyze (although I think these are reasonably straightforward cases as they go), but ‘not being a sleazy person’ is often fairly theoretically straightforward. And apart from any issues about power imbalances, I think it’s reasonable for you to expect that the people who surround you not behave in a sleazy way. It’s reasonable for you to expect that from your fellow students, and it will be reasonable for you to expect that from your colleagues once you’re no longer a student.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous

    I think actually that it’s precisely when intentions aren’t explicitly stated that people get into trouble.

    I think your first case is, potentially, acceptable, depending on the broader context. (E.g., maybe they don’t overlap research-wise, but what if the professor is set to be the chair, or a placement director, or some other position that might involve decisions that will affect all of the department’s graduate students?) Even when it was acceptable, though, part of what would make it acceptable is that the nature of the relationship was clear to both parties and not hidden from others in the department.

    The other two cases as described strike me as dangerous. If you’re willing to wait until the end of the semester to explicitly pursue a student, then you should be willing to wait until the end of the semester to implicitly pursue them. Obviously you can’t control things entirely — you’ll make it clear from your interactions that you enjoy their company, etc. — but you should refrain from flirting where you can, and certainly from inviting them to outings that have any romantic purpose, spoken or unspoken.

    The last case is clearly inappropriate. It certainly puts the student in an impossible position, which is bad enough, but it’s arguably already something of a betrayal of the spirit of the marriage to talk about it this way to an outside party, and inarguably so if the outside party is someone that the person is in any way romantically interested in. The person doing this is not stating their intentions because they know that those intentions are wrong, pure and simple.

    Reply
  3. Anonymous

    Yes, these are all inappropriate. They are inappropriate regardless of gender, by the way, and the marriage troubles one would be inappropriate even if the prof involved was simply venting. Grad students aren’t therapists. The TA’s behavior is also inappropriate, even if there is not romantic intent.

    “Sleazy” is a good term. I am glad the first response introduced it. I would also suggest “tacky.”

    FWIW, I don’t think all relationships between profs and grad students are always inappropriate. Or, if they start that way, they don’t necessarily stay that way. But I don’t think the exceptions are the sort of thing we can derive “rules” from. And I think these are all clearly inappropriate and most members of the profession would agree.

    Reply
  4. Anonymous

    All of these are inappropriate. Approach all academic environments like any other office job and the inappropriateness of things becomes much clearer.

    Part of the problem is that North American academic norms are such that you’re expected to think that your job is a part of your identity, and interviews in the US and Canada are always treated like this (multi days, dinners, etc.). These environments breed inappropriate behaviour and inappropriate expectations.

    Where I have worked in Europe, UK, and AUS/NZ, you feel more like it’s a job and once I left the US I realized how boundaries are blurred a lot in part because of cultural norms.

    This has been my experience and I am not claiming that all instances are like this.

    Reply
    1. dazesensationallye39c0dc2cd

      Can you say more about why an academic post’s being more than a job in the US — to the point that it’s treated like part of one’s identity — leads to inappropriate romantic relationships? What’s the connection?

      Reply
  5. Anonymous

    These all sound horrid and very very inappropriate to me. My view is that you don’t do anything that would make the person with less power potentially feel uncomfortable or less than fully easily able to say “no thanks” without imagining any ramifications. In addition I think you also have a thumb on the scale for avoiding anything that could give the perception that the vulnerable person was somehow advantaged by potential interest (because it can undercut their esteem and make others think they don’t deserve any success they achieve.) That cuts out most relationships between people at different career stages, at the very least in the same department.

    Reply
  6. Anonymous

    Shared interests, similar ages, similar projects, proximity…pretty standard ingredients for attraction of one to another, even for mutual chemistry. Meet a thousand people and there are bound to be some you think are attractive. I don’t think we should be surprised that these feelings come up. It does matter how we handle them.

    It is definitely true that asymmetrical romantic relationships can be harmful to the one who has less power, and that systems can help prevent those harms by preventing those relationships. Some things are simply beyond the pale–married professors discussing their failing marriage with their supervisee, for example, or a professor pursuing an undergraduate in their own department.

    I’m less concerned about cases where the ages are similar and there’s no direct authority. Love is a rare and wonderful thing, and we should be very reluctant to supervise other peoples’ pursuit of it for our own moralizing reasons. Adults have the right to construct their own lives, including choosing things that turn out to have been mistakes.

    In the case of the professor and grad student of roughly the same age mentioned by the OP, I say there’s no hard reason not to, but that they should be very cautious. Both should be aware that the existence of the relationship will cause awkwardness for others in the department even if there’s nothing technically wrong with it. (I was merely friends with a professor from a different subfield in grad school, and people were weird about even that. I was in a department for awhile where two of the professors had been married to each other since grad school and I’d say that wasn’t good for the department either since it greatly affects how everyone interacts.) The other thing to think about is that most relationships don’t last, and things could feel very bad around the department after the breakup. That might be the main reason to avoid that relationship.

    In the case of the TA and undergrad, these are young adults learning to navigate work and relationships both, and to prevent abuses of power/awkwardness for the undergrad, strict rules/expectations about this sort of thing need to be included in TA training. That responsibility falls on the university/department. The TA pushing the limits in the way OP described is not good, and I would explain to them why they should stop.

    To return to the case of the married professor discussing his failing relationship with a PhD candidate, that sounds definitely out of line on several levels, but sad and desperate people do all kinds of things that are less than ideal. Surely someone in their twenties or thirties, though, even as a grad student, knows to respond to the first step in that direction by saying something like, “I’m sorry that is happening to you, but that’s a topic I don’t feel comfortable discussing. Let’s get back to talking about this argument on page….”

    Reply
    1. Anonymous

      Surely someone with a PhD, even under marital stress, knows better than to use graduate students as outlets for that stress.

      Reply
      1. Anonymous

        Touché. One would hope so, indeed. Though I suppose one difference is that the one being put in the awkward situation is more likely to be aware of its awkwardness that the one causing the situation.

    2. Anonymous

      In practice it can be extremely hard to respond that way to a professor who has power over you. The onus should absolutely not be on the student.

      Reply
  7. street ethicist

    The behavior described, is, I think, unpleasant and uncouth if unwelcome and really quite difficult to deal with if you have to interact with this person regularly (and, again, if it is unwelcome), and because people are such poor judges of when it is welcome or causes difficulty for others is generally a bad course of action. However, in these cases I would want to consider it mainly as a species of ordinary human badness, something that’s bad in any context (regardless of embeddedness in academia etc) rather than through the lens of power, which I think is kind of a sideshow here. Permute the cases such that it’s a coworker you can’t get away from saying the same, or a coequal member of a club in which you enjoy participating saying the same. That said if you are interested in a relationship with this person and find the attention not unwelcome, I find nothing about your conduct in entering such a relationship really worthy of reproach. While I think the fact they made the approach at all was probably ill decided, that’s not so much your problem morally.

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  8. Anonymous

    All of the three examples seem clearly inappropriate to me. Gray areas can exist, but I don’t think these examples fall anywhere close to a gray area at all. I’m sorry you are experiencing this type of behavior at work.

    Imagine this were any other workplace.
    “Is it ok for a manager to romantically pursue/proposition an employee at work who they see often but don’t directly supervise?” -> obviously no
    “Is it ok for a worker to invite home, with possible romantic intentions, other employees whose work they are responsible for evaluating?” -> obviously no
    “Is it ok for the manager to initiate private conversations with younger workers for the purpose of suggestively discussing their marriage problems?” -> obviously no

    Reply
    1. Teacher

      I had a district manager who jokingly said to my manager that he was her work-husband. He and I laughed about it because it was so awkward. She’s old enough to be his mother too. We both thought it was awkward since she’s his boss. We knew she was trying to be funny and not a predator since she’s often strict and lawful. I guess some people just aren’t naturally funny and when they try to be it comes across as awkward to others. It’s hard to assess intents in gray area situations. We only have actions to judge.

      I get that academic life can be lonesome and some professors just want more deep connections with people of similar interests even on a friendship level. But professors gotta learn how to have interests and friends outside of academia and research that they’re not burdening their students or colleagues with a role they’re not supposed to be in. Your students aren’t your therapists, friends, colleagues, or potential romantic partner.

      I’m a primary school teacher and we have strict procedures about interacting with students. I am not allowed to discuss politics with them. I am not allowed to discuss personal life with them. They are not my friends or children. They are my students. Of course I have to care about their well-being and protect them in cases of danger or health problems. Part of the protection of well-being is doing your best to make sure they learn the subject matter as best as they can and that you teach it as best as you can. Pursuing and interacting with students outside of such educational contexts goes against protecting their well-being. If I suspect abuse or neglect it’s my duty to report it to the administration.

      I suppose the lax atmosphere of higher education and the fact that most students are adults often cloud professors’ judgements about what they should divulge to students. Most people wouldn’t talk to their manager or supervisor about personal life problems or even want to hear it from them, let alone their own professor.

      This situation is worse with philosophy professors since the dating pool is so small for them already (assuming most philosophers want to date other philosophers). If you have philosophy majors, encourage them to pursue other interests aside from philosophy so that if they become professors they don’t get tempted to see their students as potential spouses.

      Reply
    2. Anon

      I’m pretty sure it’s fine in every sense of the word for a manager to proposition an employee. I know an owner of a business who is happily married to his employee. Situations can be tricky to navigate, but it can be done. (I also know several profs who are happily married to their former grad students.) again that’s an especially tricky situation but it can be done.

      Reply
      1. Teacher

        The positive consequences do not matter much in assessing the these situations since, in most cases, most employees and students don’t like being hit on by such authority figures. Allowing such behaviors out of the possibility of romantic luck is not worth causing psychological and social distress to employees and students. Are you okay with more students and employees feeling forever uncomfortable and having a hindered professional and educational relationship all because there is a chance of a romantic spark happening?

        I think it’s silly to act like romance is highest good in life when it’s not. We as a society and culture should not be so soap opera brained.

      2. Anonymous

        Under US employment law, unwelcome sexual advances can constitute harassment. So, no, it is not fine in “every sense of the word.” The manager would need to know that the advance is welcome, which is “tricky,” as you say. Then there is the environment for otheres to consider, as others have mentioned, plus the worry about retaliation if the relationship ends, and so on.

        There are billions of people in this world. Why proposition a graduate student? Having seen the ugly consequences of both consensual and nonconsensual propositions first-hand, I see nothing good coming from it in most cases.

      3. Anon

        As you both point out, this can be tricky. I take it that if one reasonably views this as an encounter with doing (and that it’s not “unwelcome”) it’s fine in every sense of the word. It all depends on whether you’re in a good place to make this judgment, which undoubtedly some are (eg if the grad student propositions you or if you’re reasonably sure that the grad student would be receptive to being propositioned, etc..) I’ve not claimed this is often the case, but it’s no doubt sometimes the case, as my examples show. The lesson then is: take it on a case by case basis.

  9. Teacher

    I also want to add that focusing on power imbalances may not help much to prevent this issue. The lens of power is important for the justificatory aspect of why such relationships are bad or immoral but it does little to help us prevent more of the problem from arising. It may help with legal sanctions but that’s still mostly reactive and not proactive.

    Understanding *why* some professors have a strong desire to pursue students romantically or sexually is important and perhaps this can be prevented by how we structure the education of grad students and environment of universities.

    Loneliness is a real problem for everyone including professors and students. There needs to be ways for them to deal with it ethically and it’s something that I haven’t seen discussed much in this topic both in forums and articles. You can talk about the role of teaching and the morality and legality of it all you want, but so long as the phenomenological and psychological issues aren’t adequately addressed, it’s going to be hard to change and prevent these bad behaviors from arising in the first place for people entrusted to not cross those professional boundaries.

    Reply
  10. Anonymous

    One further problem with romantic relations between professors and grad students in the same department: when graduate students are discussed in department meetings, and funding distributed, then the professor SHOULD recuse themself from the discussion (and leave the room). I doubt in most cases this will happen, especially if the romantic relationship is happening on the side or in the shadows. But other students who know about the relationship will justifiably think it is unfair if the professor does not recuse themself.
    Further, other students who may have wanted to work with the professor in the relationship may now legitimately worry that they will get less help on the market from the professor, if they work with them, as their first priority will be the fate of their romantic partner.

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  11. recentlytenured

    All of those situations are, in fact, inappropriate precisely because of the power imbalance. The fact that the people involved are being a bit sneaky about what they are actually up to makes it worse because it is making you think that it is ambiguous. It is not.

    Your professor(s) has/have put you and your friends in a terrible situation. Even if all the possible ways this could go wrong, as have been noted above, have not obtained in your case(s), the fact that it could – that this person *could* make your lives much, much worse, often in invisible ways, is enough to cast doubt and perhaps invisible lines of coercion over something (your romantic relationship) that should be a source of strength and joy.

    For the record, this isn’t abstract for me. I dated my TA as an undergrad (I asked him to have someone else grade my work, lol), and it was a huge mistake. He turned out to suck as a person but I was in a very weird and dangerous position because I thought he was older, wiser – turns out, only the former – but then was stuck in a relationship with someone who had power over me, my grades, and my future in philosophy. Would not recommend! I have also observed what happens when a grad student dates their professor and it goes badly. When I was in grad school, a woman in my program dated one of the younger professors (like, fewer than 5 years older than the younger PhD students) and when they broke up, it was ugly and she (predictably) bore the consequences. She left philosophy.

    I don’t know how to carefully extract yourself from this situation, particularly without knowing you or the details, but I do think it would be better off if you were no longer in it. I think getting out of it is really, really hard and you should talk to someone you trust to help you strategize.

    There are so, so many fish in the sea – I’d be horrified to learn that one of my colleagues was dating a grad student, or if I learned that one of my TAs was flirting with their students. If you’re asking about how I, a professional philosopher, as a member of an academic community think of these things, it is this: I think very little of academics who date those they have power over, even if they are close in age, because it suggests a selfishness at odds with the projects of philosophical thinking and professional mentorship. I do not think less of the persons with less power in those situations, because it is not on them to know better. Amia Srinivasan has an essay which touches on this in her collection “The Right to Sex” – I would recommend it.

    Academia is hierarchical and occasionally a bit cultish so it is easy to see how someone who is very smart, famous, whatever could have a bit of extra romantic pull. It is on those people at the tops of hierarchies to know how *not* to use that power.

    Reply
  12. Anonymous

    Obviously this is not offered as a piece of advice, since it is a questionable strategy for so many reasons, but it does work for that one goal, in my experience. I am a woman living through almost all my “prime” years without being harassed by not appearing attractive. For example, I received no romantic attention in high school (where this is common) by simply having my hair short and messy (boys thought it was gross; I didn’t think so). My appearance kept me safe even in some of the most notorious places when I was travelling.

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  13. Anonymous

    A couple thoughts, in no particular order, late to the thread:
    1. Sleazy behavior is bad.
    2. Many academics can be incredibly smart philosophers but not incredibly smart socially.
    3. Power is complicated and works in often obvious, and then some less obvious, forms (role/rank being only one aspect of power).
    4. People also meet in professional contexts *all the time* and form friendships and romantic relationships in professional settings. We spend a lot of time at our jobs. And points 1-3 can complicate this fact.

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  14. Anonymous

    I’m late to the thread here, but there’s something that hasn’t been mentioned above that is worth noting.

    Academia is much more like the entertainment industry than we would perhaps like to admit. Given this, some of the norms that we take from the business world aren’t enough to help us. We don’t have the same work/life balance or clear boundaries of office life–it’s normal for us to be good friends with our colleagues, and such friendship and familiarity often results in better collaborations. It’s not enough to simply be good; to make it in philosophy, you must be a positively known quantity with excellent word-of-mouth support and no stink on you. Landing a TT job is, in many ways, like auditioning for a competitive movie role. Being a superstar isn’t enough; early career people need to be seen in a certain light, given that they’re replaceable by an army of eager actors. (Similarly, established superstars can get away with some extremely bad behavior, given that people don’t want to upset the philosophical Tom Cruises.)

    This makes the power imbalances of the kinds of romantic overtures listed above *more* harmful than office life, rather than less. One can’t simply move managers if things go awry, or even get a very unhelpful, company-protecting HR involved. Even if someone isn’t in a direct supervisory relationship with someone, they still have a lot of power over the careers of people on lower rungs. There’s referee assignments and reviewing, who gets invited to conferences and workshops, the writing of tenure letters, etc. etc. People gossip about each other *a lot*, and even text one other about potential job prospects. It doesn’t take much to blacklist someone. And philosophy has had, very publicly, its own Harvey Weinsteins. Ashley Judd refused his advances and lost out on being in Lord of the Rings because she was labeled “difficult to work with”, and this was at the height of her stardom. People know Rose McGowan was right, and she still hasn’t worked again. I’ve seen the same sorts of negative things happen to people in philosophy, both after refusing someone’s advances and acquiescing to them. This is a big factor in philosophy’s pipeline problem.

    The normal sorts of objections that are given to concerns about power dynamics sound similar to things in the entertainment industry, as well. Of course it’s natural to be attracted to young actors and movie stars (or, in our case, likeminded people)! Of course there are situations where an actor married a producer and it worked out well. But I suspect we can see how it’s harmful to proposition someone who is involved in what’s basically a long-form audition for your movie/production company/professional guild, when suddenly we seem to get cognitive blinders on when the situation is applied to philosophy. You’re not “just shooting your shot” because perhaps you’ve “caught feelings”. The ramifications for others– and not just who you’re propositioning–are far-reaching for the profession, even if the action is seemingly inconsequential to you.

    And, in my personal experience, philosophers tend to be much worse than the population at large in assessing someone else’s potential interest and whether it’s safe to proposition someone. For example, I once repeatedly told someone that I was *not* interested, would never be interested, and how professionally harmful hitting on me would be. They did it anyway.

    Reply

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