Universities shouldn’t ban student-faculty relationships

We’re all consenting adults here

As of late, the University of British Columbia’s interim President Dr. Martha Piper has been discussing a potential policy reform which would see the regulation of student-faculty relationships at the university.

In practice, the policy she’s discussing would be less of a regulation and more of an outright ban on romantic relationships between the two parties. If enacted, the policy would be the first of its kind in any Canadian university to confront this behaviour.

The rash of sexual assault allegations at UBC is likely a contributing factor in the creation of this policy, but it is unknown how many of those incidents included a member of faculty. In this light, barring teacher-student relationships seems logical, given the inherent power imbalances involved in such a pairing. Piper even compared the teacher-student dichotomy to that between a physician and patient, though honestly if all faculty members were required to take a Hippocratic oath there would likely be a lot more teachers out of a job.

So far the supposed policy is still only in the discussion phase—nothing concrete has yet emerged aside from a statement on the matter from Piper. With a complex issue such as this, what is often lost in the creation of policy is context. Not all relationships between faculty and staff can be neatly categorized together—of equal importance is the discussion around the rights of consenting adults.

Given the nature of this subject, it’s easy to argue from an ethical or moral standpoint. UBC should have a policy where faculty are obliged to disclose such consensual relationships to the administration for the sake of transparency. But disciplinary measures should not doled out at the expense of those in legitimate consensual relationships merely on the basis of precedent setting.

As difficult as it may be to define consent in university environments, particularly with student faculty relationships, this is one place where the interpretation is as important as what gets set out on paper, for everyone involved.