A student receives $130,000 and an "A" for letting someone touch her breasts.
Q. Would you like to touch one of my ears for $13,000? Or my nose for $11,000? Or my left thumb for $5,000?
A._____________________________
[You may not touch the horse. The horse is off-limits.]
I don't know what I would do if my supervisor offered to give me a stellar annual evaluation in return for touching my nose or some other body part.
ReplyDeleteBut if the RGM offered me $25,000 in return for hir creating a strange pornographic equine image for this post, I might take that.... Might.
The horse is naked.
DeleteSo is the duck.
Not only is the horse naked, the horse is being ridden. Lord knows what kind of sidebar ads this will lead to.
DeleteI got 123checks.com offering 50% off horse checks.
DeleteI don't get the ads. Mine are always the same. I have a watch, an online degree, and a kindle. Maybe this means I need to spend more time reading online. Or less?
Deletehttp://fc09.deviantart.net/fs36/i/2008/273/2/7/Mah_Sexay_Pose_by_WyckedWytchInMe.jpg
ReplyDeleteBTW, is SFW, unless your boss is a horse, then I don't know.
DeleteIt's not "letting" someone touch your breast if that touching is forced or coerced. It's assault...and could we *please* not trivialize it?
ReplyDelete@drunk: On a serious note, yes, I agree with you... more than you can imagine. Some quite valid questions remain:
Delete1. If you were the president of UIowa (or its general counsel), how much would you offer the student to settle this? Is $130,000 enough? Too much? How about $13,000,000? Or $13?
2. If your department chairman offered you a stellar evaluation and a raise in return for letting him touch your ear, would you acquiesce?
3. What would Stella do if the provost offered her a $5,000 raise if she'd just let him caress the muffler on her Lamborghini for a few seconds?
This is the world we live in. This is the misery. In the context of this post, these might seem like mere thought experiments. But this is the real misery.
I swear to god I would give the provost a blowjob for a 5K raise. Hell, I would give a smelly hobo a blowjob for a 5k raise. I'd tell my husband about it too. As I plan to work for another 20 years, I'd get more than 100k for that one blowjob by the time I retired.
DeleteI'd save all that money and then when we retired we'd take a cruise to England--first class--and then go on a long luxury train trip on the Royal Scotsman. We'd call it the "blowjob trip" and laugh. Then we'd come home and buy ourselves a new car.
Alas, I do not get such opportunities.
Stella, that's got "Festschrift" written all over it. I'm taking notes.
DeleteI wish there were somewhere we could click "two thumbs up!" Stella. That was priceless.
Delete"Hell, I would give a smelly hobo a blowjob for a 5k raise." This made me shoot coffee out of my nose this morning! Yay!
DeleteIt's not assault. And it's not coercion. To say it is devalues both terms. The prof did not assault her because he did not touch her breasts without her permission, which she gave him. And his actions would only be coercion had he threatened to give her an unearned F. What he did was ask her if she wanted an unearned A. That's different. I'm assuming it was unearned, or why would she let that sicko touch her tits?
ReplyDeleteWhat it is is gross academic misconduct, and sexual harassment, for which the prof should have been fired, had he not killed himself.
And what I'd like to know as well is the timeline. Did she get the A, AND the 130k? Because she should not get both.
There is a quite real question as to whether *any* student enrolled in a given professor's course has the capacity to consent/grant meaningful permission in light of the imbalance of power. Separate and apart from that general problem, though, our perception of the 'encounter' may change if we imagine that it took place in an enclosed, confined space - like, say, the professor's office - or at a time when the grade was perceived by the student as especially important (e.g., because she was in danger of losing a scholarship). Other factors could be important as well. In short, we simply don't know enough about what was going on to categorically rule out assault or coercion.
DeleteNor can we automatically say that the student receiving the A *and* the money amounts to a kind of 'double-counting'. If the student was not in a position where she could meaningfully consent, then why should the professor be able to decide - effectively for the both of them - what the fair value of the touching should be? To effectively compensate the student, we need to consider what amount would have been reached following a fair process of negotiation. More importantly, it is wrong to treat this situation like a breach of contract - it is also a breach of the professor's fiduciary obligations to the student.
You're right, though: at the very least, this is gross academic misconduct.
Stella, I'm inclined to say coercion. Clearly, the student knew this was against the school rules, if not against the law. Somebody who receives this proposition can reasonably infer that the professor is not honest. It's not unusual for somebody to be resentful if their sexual advances are turned away, in any type of relationship. Professors have a great deal of power over students' grades.
DeleteYou know what the mob really means when they say, "How about we sign your business up for our protection service..."
It's reasonable for the student to feel coerced because the professor's offer which carries with it an implied threat.
If you read other coverage, it's clear that this was not a consensual situation; the professor "grabbed her breasts" and told her she'd have to do something "special for a higher grade." While it's unethical enough to "negotiate" for grades, this professor crossed the line into criminal activity: http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20120202/NEWS01/302020026/UI-ex-student-settle-Arthur-Miller-case
DeleteYou seem to be starting with the assumption that the sex-for-grades thing was the student's idea. Why? Casting this event in the light of "she got what she wanted" is incredibly problematic.
The other coverage does seem to indicate coercion with the other students, but I don't know that she didn't allow him to. Grabbing breasts doesn't have to be assault, though it can be.
DeleteWhether or not it was criminal is a job for the cops to decide. Apparently he was charged with "accepting bribes." So, er...I'm still not clear exactly as to what went on. Harassment, definitely. Lots of stuff for which he should be fired. But I don't know whether or not it's a felony. It's a moot point as he shot himself four years ago, which seems more proof than anything else of his guilt.
And, unfortunately, a lot of students do try to trade sex for grades. Some try to bribe profs with money. It happens all the time. I've been teaching for long enough to know that many, many female students throw themselves at their professors. And I've been offered cash for grades.
Not enough, though. Not enough.
The only way that someone grabbing my breasts is not assault is if I have explicitly given them permission to do so, in advance. That does not seem to have been the case here.
DeleteGiven the rest of the guy's history, and the fact that he did have a history of sexual abuse of students, though, I am not surprised that the university settled and I think they're feeling damn relieved they got off so lightly.
The felony was soliciting sex for grades. As an employee of the state, the professor was accepting a bribe for the the performance of his duties. As the original article pointed out, soliciting sex for grades is a felony.
DeleteYou say you don't know the student didn't allow the contact. Is the fact she filed a criminal complaint not enough? You don't seem to have a problem assuming that the student initiated the contact and then changed her mind. That's a really problematic assumption to be working from.
@Merely: The "explicit permission" perspective reminds me of the policy Antioch College implemented 20 years ago requiring people to get explicit permission at each step up in the romantic entanglement: May I walk next to you? May I carry your books? May I hold your hand? May I stare at you intently? May I kiss you on the cheek? May I let all my manhood explode into your naked body?.... And without explicit permission, the student would be punished. It was a policy that was mocked in a Saturday Night Live skit, I believe, but an interesting approach if the community accepts it.
DeleteUltimately, it seems like prostitution for the university to pay the student for sexual activity. How can paying for sex not be prostitution?
DeleteI hope the city attorney will approach this as a crime that the university can't buy its way out of. If the university knew a proffie was assaulting students, then someone should go to jail. If they didn't know, then why did they pay off the student?
Perhaps the proffie started down this perverted path because a student in a yellow sundress put the idea in his mind, and then he began to find that the students were easy targets. It's sad. Clearly he was disturbed--he fucking killed himself, after all.
But the student was an adult and she made her decisions, too. Yes, there was an imbalance of power, but there practically always is an imbalance of power in relationships. She could have pushed him away after he initially approached her or touched her, couldn't she have? Of course, we'll never know the true details because the proffie is dead and the former student's story may or may not be true. And the former student now walks away with $87,000 (after attorneys' fees) and thinking that prostitution's not a bad gig; the University of Fucking Iowa is not doing anything to dissuade her.
Who knows? Maybe the proffie was framed.
All parties in this situation seem pretty fucked-up: the student, the proffie, the university, the local law enforcement, etc….
Regardless of the sexual issues, I would have fired the proffie if I'd discovered that he was basing grades on criteria not related to the course content. If he had raised a student's grade because the student paid him $1,000,000 or because the student merely bought him a can of Coca-Cola, then I would have fired the fucktard. Otherwise, the school's academic reputation will be in the toilet.
Barb--Well, if soliciting sex for grades is a felony, then he should have been prosecuted. Probably would have been had he not offed himself.
DeleteAnd no, the fact that the woman filed a criminal complaint is absolutely not enough to say with finality that she didn't initiate or welcome the contact. Why would YOU think that? Are all criminal complaints completely valid just because they exist? ???
And I never said the student initiated contact. What I said was that it was a possibility that she was amenable to his offer. That's different from initiating contact.
@Stella - He was charged with the felony. It stays so in all of the news reports. Given that he is *dead*, a criminal trial could no longer happen. The student pressed for civil damages from the university, and settled out of court. (Soliciting a bribe is defined as a felony in Iowa Code 722, if you want a reference.)
DeleteI would "think that" because generally I try not to assume that the victim is lying. Especially since generally, that doesn't happen, particularly in regards to sexual crimes (a 2% rate according to the FBI.) And yet there is this persistent pattern of trying to put the blame on the victim, and constructing stories (as others have done in these comments) where women are opportunistic gold diggers who file false complaints to go after the poor upstanding men.
And yes, you do say that the student initiated the content: both in your statement that there must have been a reason she "let" him touch her breasts, and your statement that he "had permission." The stories say the student complied - not agreed. Complying with someone who has power over you is far different than freely consenting.
And one last point. Your original comment also asked for the timeline. If you read the news stories, it's apparent that the student filed her complaint immediately after the incident. Also, four other women filed complaints. Are they all liars subjecting themselves to the legal system for the fun of it?
"a 2% rate according to the FBI"
DeleteInteresting number.
Perhaps a citation could be provided?
I'd like to know about this place where 98% of the people never lie. Sounds like a painful place to live. If I lived there, I would get drunk much more often.
See the bibliography provided below, Bubba.
DeleteThanks for proving my point, though. Way to suggest that victims invite sexual assault with the clothes they wear. Also, your decision to call the victim of a crime is now a prostitute. I don't know why I'm shocked.
@Barb: Thanks for the articles. I look forward to reading them. Would it be possible to point to the one that mentions the 2% rate? I'd like to read that one first.
DeleteAlso, which comment on this thread suggested anything about the clothes worn by victims? I mentioned that the horse and duck were naked. Stella mentioned something about a hobo, which could be interpreted as meaning something about the way the person dressed. I mentioned the yellow sundress, which was a CM/RYS allusion you might have missed--and which was certainly not a blame-the-victim allusion.
And, yes, I'd say that exchanging sex for money is prostitution. As is exchanging sex for higher grades. Does that mean that prostitutes are not victims? No. Quite the contrary, most (or all) prostituted people are victims.
This is a story about a disturbed student and a disturbed proffie, and an educational system that really doesn't give a shit about their pathologies.
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Delete@ Bubba - the article with the 2% figure is the Lisak article. However, the 2% figure is well known. Feel free to look at the FBI's statistics themselves: http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/offenses/violent_crime/forcible_rape.html
Delete"proffie started down this perverted path because a student in a yellow sundress put the idea in his mind"...the original story seems to have been about how the incident actually turned that particular correspondent off the idea of exploiting his students. Your comment seems to spin it right around into "the students ask for it" territory.
The student in this case is not a prostitute. She did not "exchange sex for money." She received a settlement for a violation of person. This is a different situation, and trying to equate the two is problematic. By calling the student a prostitute, you are again painting this as a situation where the poor professor and university system were being taken for a ride by a gold-digging snowflake. It would be really nice if people stopped minimizing the problems of sexual exploitation.
It is prostitution to exchange sexual activity for money or higher grades. The student did that.
DeleteTo say that it was not prostitution because it wasn't initially her idea or that she didn't really crave the transaction suggests that all the other prostituted people in the world do it because they woke up one day when they were little girls and spontaneously decided, "Gosh, I really want to be a prostitute when I grow up!"--and that they thoroughly enjoy it and find it heart-warming and fulfilling, and that they're doing it entirely of their own free will as part of their glamourous pursuit of self-actualization.
This is a case of prostitution. Not wanting to call it that doesn't make it untrue.
Prostitution is a violation of a person.
The fact that the payment in this case was called a "settlement" or "higher grade" instead of a "donation" doesn't mean this is not a case of prostitution.
Higher education is an ugly business, regardless of whether or not a post-structuralist problematizes the shit out of it. It's still a fucking ugly business.
The student did not "exchange sexual activity" for money. The university provided a legal settlement for the violation of the student's person. This was not a "you do this I give you that" situation. Framing it that way once again creates the impression that the student was complicit in her assault.
DeleteProstitution may be a violation of a person, but not all violations of persons are prostitution.
I got the last word in!
Delete:-)
That little spot below your left ear? Just at the turn of your jaw? That's mine; you set the terms.
ReplyDeleteTomorrow night. 8:00PM. Behind the compound. You bring the cash, you get ten minutes. Don't be late.
DeleteEverything about this story is disproportionate.
ReplyDeleteAn "A" just for feeling her tits? This guy must give out a lot of A's or he would treat the grade with the value it deserves. They can't be that good.
$130,000 seems light, especially if the student had to pay legal fees from that judgement.
Finally, killing himself is quite the sentence. He might have been able to cooperate with the school. Things would have been hushed up, a good outcome for him and the school. He could have been allowed to simply move on to another job elsewhere using a letter of recommendation that failed to mention this unfortunate situation.
As Bubba said, that's the misery we live in.
@Beaker: You might be underestimating her tits. If they're as good as my ears, then the proffie got a bargain. As Mrs. C will soon learn, my ears are worth every penny.
DeleteThe legal fees might not be too bad since this was settled out of court - and who knows what kind of 'discount' the student was prepared to accept to avoid having to go to trial.
ReplyDeleteHe probably figured (rightly or wrongly) that, once the police became involved, that hushing up the matter was no longer an option. And I'm not sure we should encourage universities to make it easy for profs who engage in this kind of behaviour to continue their careers elsewhere. If this is indeed a serious wrong - and, after all, it is a felony - then let's say so.
Maybe this is just me, but it seems ludicrous that the school paid a settlement. It did, I imagine, assuming that if it went to trial a jury would slap it with a higher fine. What, for Pete's sake, did the school do wrong that deserves that fine? Through what process could it have found that this professor was nuts / a perv?
ReplyDeleteI'd be all for fining the professor (although it is unclear how you put a price to what he did) but the school? Is this where the tuition/tax money goes?
A trial leads to bad press and is more expensive just for the lawyers. They may have actually been slow to stop this professor after the first complaint. They just wanted to cut their losses.
DeleteI'd gladly let you touch my tits for $130K. I would not, however, do so for an A. I earn my A's the old fashioned way.
ReplyDeleteI just read the article. Wow. I don't know if he had a career history of this (the suit alleged that the prof had a history of sexual harassment which was known to the university, but they continued to employ him). But there were four complaints from different students all in the same 2 week period, including 2 on the same day. It's tempting to think this was some kind of nervous breakdown on his part, or an illness causing a sudden behaviour change.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, the last case I heard - a prof harassing a junior who was coming up for tenure, quite egregiously - I wanted to say "nervous breakdown", "sudden weird character change". But it turned out that there were multiple complaints about his behaviour from all sorts of people (all junior women in vulnerable positions.)
I guess I just find this kind of behaviour so astounding that I can never believe, to begin with, that it's not the result of some catastrophic brain injury or something.
No (to answer the Thirsty). The student isn't blameless. To accept such an arrangement voluntarily is unethical and possibly illegal. At least the student did the right thing in the end, but her grade should have been re-calculated. And if you're considering high-priced prostitution, just a friendly PSA: administering a blow job can give the blower some particularly nasty STDs, so use a condom, unless a nasty STD is really worth the 5K raise (it's a myth that blow jobs can't transmit disease to either party).
ReplyDeleteCan you please point me to the news story that says the student actually AGREED to the arrangement? Because from reading the coverage, what I get is that the professor initiated the contact, and there was not consent. In other words, he assaulted her.
DeleteAlso, I'd like to see the source for the assumption that 1) the student needed help for the A, and 2) that she actually received it.
Barb, in order to answer those questions, one would have to read the article. Don't you think that's asking a little much?
DeleteReading really does seem to be a problem around here these days.
DeleteNo.
ReplyDeleteHow about if the student enters a sexual relationship with the prof, maintains it for over a year, then graduates? Three years later, the student decides that she was sexually harassed and that the college didn't do enough to protect her (there were only two proffies in the department: one old, ugly one, and one young, handsome one. You guess which one the student was bonking. That's right: the handsome one). She decides to sue.
The student's lawyer called me to depose me (I was a student in the same program). I told the lawyer that I (along with everyone who'd been on our class trip to Paris) had known that she was having an affair with him, and the lawyer tried to make the "balance of power" argument. I told her that was bullshit. At a small SLAC like my alma mater, if she had felt threatened or harassed, the administration would have listened to her, because there were plenty of people who could have corroborated that they knew she was fucking her prof.
The judge threw her case out without a hearing.
The problem, BurntChrome, is that there is a power differential, even if the student is willingly entering the relationship. Even if the student has a crush on the prof, it's unethical as hell for the prof to take advantage of that. There is an adult in the room, and it's not the student.
DeleteA serial abuser at my university left his first wife for his grad student, whom he married and then dumped for a starry-eyed undergraduate. Sure, the students willingly entered the relationship. But do you think either young woman would have been interested in this guy 15 or 30 years their senior if he had just been selling them a car, or exhaling beer fumes all over them in a bar somewhere? It was his position of authority over them that got him the attention of those young women. The university put him in that position of authority, and needs to have rules about what constitutes abuse.
So I'm sorry the judge threw out the case without a hearing. Because you don't know what actually went on between the two in your story, but I can tell you that whatever it was, the power differential between the two made a difference.
Nor does it matter a damn that the prof was good-looking. He was still in a position of power.
And this is relevant to the post....why?
DeleteDid you read ANY of the news coverage? Did you read any of the wording of the original complaint? What is with all the immediate jumping to the conclusion that the student was the person who deliberately engaged in unethical behavior?
The move would be "a male has been accused of sexual impropriety. Quick! cast doubt on the accuser! If we can't cast doubt on her specific story, let us point out that she comes from a class of people (women) who frequently lie about this kind of thing! So she's probably lying too!" This move is very common, and I don't think that BurntChrome necessarily meant it consciously. But the narrative pattern (sexual assault accusation countered by a false-accusation story) is so common people fall into it automatically.
DeleteThis is a very common move in law courts, and one reason that if I or anyone I loved were ever sexually assaulted I would seriously consider not bothering to tell the police.
It's relevant because in the case of my SLAC, authorities weren't notified until 3 years after the fact, when the accuser decided that she'd been abused--3 years afterwards---and she wanted to sue the school for not protecting her, when it bloody well couldn't have done so because it did not know that anything untoward was going on, because she didn't report it as abuse at the time.
DeleteI did not mean to offend. I am not even sure why I felt it necessary to tell the story, except to say that as a female student in the same program, I looked at my fellow student with contempt...she knew he was married and fucked him anyway. If she had felt pressured there were plenty of people ready to listen to her. The fact that she didn't do anything until well after she'd graduated smacks of ... a mercenary agenda. The judge threw it out because she could not prove 1) quid pro quo, or 2) a hostile environment.
The student in the UIowa case was treated ... exactly as she should have been, I suppose. Sex-for-grades is disgusting, regardless of the gender of the accused/accuser.
I humbly apologize for sidetracking the thread.
Another fun fact is that I can name about twenty marriages I know of--at least twenty--where the relationship resulted from a student/teacher connection. Power imbalance, sure, but these things happen, and hindsight is 20/20. In every single one of those relationships, the student (mostly females, but a couple of males) made advances on their prof, in many cases not even waiting until after the semester was over.
DeleteIt's not exactly wise to paint with a really broad brush when it comes to these sorts of things. It's not always "wrong" for a student and a professor to have a relationship, so long as everything is above board. It's definitely wrongheaded for the prof to put himself/herself in that sort of position while the object of their affection is in their class at the time. That's just asking for trouble.
But there's a world of difference between the kind of situations I'm talking about here, and some fugly pervert saying "show me your tits if you want an A".
It seems like every single time a situation crops up like this, women (as well as men) are supposed to fall all over themselves supporting the alleged victim. As this thread shows, the mere fact that the victim actually made a complaint is cited as the proof that it occurred.
Well, guess what? Not every woman or man tells the truth all the time, especially when they have something to gain. Don't we remind ourselves of that here every day? What if one of us had a complaint lodged against us by a student--and an administrator said "Well the student went to the trouble to file a complaint, so it must me true!"
Why do we think students can and do lie about everything--except sexual harassment? I'm not saying this student IS lying. There seems to be a preponderance of evidence to suggest she's NOT. But why do we distrust every claim a student makes when their self-interest is involved, save for this sort?
Hey! Can my students start using their "knowing twenty people" as support for their papers?
DeleteI don't know where you're living where "every single time a situation crops up like this, women (as well as men) are supposed to fall all over themselves supporting the alleged victim." I mean, I'd hope that would happen more among people who are educated and have a presumably larger grasp of how society works, but I guess not.
There is a culture, particularly on college campuses, of minimizing sexual violence and exploitation. The nearly universal reaction is to claim that the victim is making the story up, or is out to get something from the complaint. In terms of the situation on campus, most universities (with the exception of Antioch as quoted by Bubba upthread) have unofficial practices that work hard to cover up such incidences. While they may have official no-tolerance policies, in actual practice victims are often left with no support and are discouraged from filing their complaints. Kudos to this student - and the FOUR OTHER students who also filed complaints - for bucking this trend.
I'll spare y'all the bibliography and footnotes, but if you want to see the research, I'll post it.
Oh, and the "having something to gain" thing...are you suggesting that the student agreed to the quid pro quo, then thought "Hey, I can get my A and a cash settlement!", and then filed her complaint? What the hell do you think she was getting out of this?
Delete@Stella: +1
Delete@Barb: Yes, please post the bibliography/footnotes. We academics like those things. Thanks for the offer.
DeleteHere you go, Bubba, some light reading for you.
DeleteGross, A.M., A. Winslett, M. Roberts, and C.L. Gohm. (2006). An Examination of Sexual Violence Against College Women. Violence Against Women 12, 288-300.
Mayhew, M.J, R.J. Caldwell & E.G. Godlman. (2011). Defining Campus Violence: A Phenomenological Analysis of Community Stakeholder Perspectives. Journal of College Student Development 52, 253-269.
Payne, B.K. (2008). Challenges responding to sexual violence: Differences between college campuses and communities. Journal of Criminal Justice 36, 224-230.
Walh, W.A., V.L. Banyard, M.M. Moynihan, S. Ward and E.S. Cohn. (2010). Disclosure and Service Use on a College Campus After an Unwanted Sexual Experience. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation 11, 134-151.
Lisak, D., L. Gardinier, S.C. Nicksa, and A.M. Cote. 2010. False Allegations of Sexual Assault: An Analysis of Ten Years of Reported Cases. Violence Against Women 16, 1318-1334.
Barb and Stella: You're both right. Blaming the victim--especially in sexual harassment cases and, even worse, in rapes--is a common tactic, whether it's used by lawyers or misogynists. College professors who fall in love and marry their students happens often enough, too.
ReplyDeleteTeachers who have relationships with students--even if they're entirely consensual--are taking a BIG chance, and "Let's wait until you graduate" isn't much of an option, either.
My personal opinion about THIS case is limited because I don't have all the facts, and because the student complained after the fact and had something to gain by telling her story.
ReplyDeleteI know very well there is a culture of minimizing sexual exploitation on college campuses. We've several professors in the past few years because of it. The University lets them "resign" because it doesn't want to make a stink of firing them. That sucks.
But my immediate reaction when a student--or anyone--tells me something--is to weigh their story against what I myself am in a position to know about the situation/people involved. I don't assume the victim is making it up. I assume nothing save what I can assume. And if a student claims she's being harassed, I file a formal report, because that's my job.
But I don't just assume that people tell the truth, especially people I don't know well, about other people I don't know well. And I also don't assume that two people will see the situation the exact same way all the time.
The Antioch regulations are a hysterical bunch of bullshit, btw. If people had to behave that way all the time, no one would ever, ever get laid.
My point is you actually seem to have no problem assuming the student *was* lying. You're not claiming a neutral, I-don't-know-what-happened attitude here, you've defended the professor and criticized the student for getting a settlement. Why is that?
Delete