Sex between teacher and student in the USA

Remove all ads!

Beren,
with all due respect, this isn't at all about criminalizing student-teacher sexual relations, or about who does what in what country. Your valiant attempts at steering this thread in a constructive direction must fail in light of the original intent of the author.

During my commute this morning the involuntary hilarious premise of this thread struck me: Because in Hungary a teacher can boink a student, as long as the student isn't underage, Hungary offers more "freedom" than the USA!

Yeah, take that Hillary. But she's lecturing Hungary about freedom anyway. What a double standard! What a hypocrite! Yeah, check and mate, ma'am!

 

That underlying premise is wrong though. In the US a teacher/instructor/professor can boink his or her student as long as the student is an adult and the act is concentual. In some private schools such an act can get you fired, but isn't that true with many workplaces? "You can't dip your pen in the company ink" is a common policy.

 

It is entertaining. Guilty pleasures, I know.

 

There's currently a bill pending in Michigan that would criminalize sex between teachers and students of any age under their direct influence as follows (currently it's only between age of consent and adulthood):

See: http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2011-2012/billintroduced/Senate/pdf/2011-SIB-0596.pdf

I read that there are five other states where this is already law, but I didn't look into that and I don't know which they might be.

[ed. - strikethrough formatting didn't carry over ... I changed it to bold.)

 

When I taught at a university, you were only prohibited from having a relationship with a student if he/she was your student at the time. Even if you met that person in class, once he/she has completed your course, there was no prohibition on it (assuming the student was at least 18, and given that we're talking about a university, that would be just about everyone).

 

Thanks for the clarifications, everyone. Maybe the Hungarian news site where I read it (which belongs to a liberal media empire ) already considered the law mentioned by Gaear as an accepted law in effect. Either due to misinformation they received, or intentionally (for bigger hype). Edit: I missed that Gaear wrote that the proposition might actually be an accepted law in 5 states; so perhaps the news what I read were based on these states.

Before Beren's hat would transform into a warrior's helmet: since allowing sex between student and teacher can be considered as a "liberal" approach, I consider my quick answer to damedog's question as on-topic.
Damedog: no, I don't hate them, in fact there are some matters where I disagree with the (overly) conservative approach and instead agree with the liberal approach. But the present liberal approaches (e.g. about drugs, about obscene speech, about "endless' freedom etc.) reject me much. They generally forget that freedom to do something is 'freedom' (and not 'force' or 'violence') only as long as it doesn't hurt someone else's freedom for something else. E.g. freedom of speech vs. freedom not to get hurt by rude words. Nowadays, it seems to be a general tendency that people are cursing so often (I do it too, but not often, and it depends on the situation!), and that they don't give *respect* to the elder, or to anyone who might deserve it due to traditions or other reasons. Liberals seem to say or imply that 'respect' is something wrong, something unfair etc. It isn't.

 

If there is a law preventing a sexual or otherwise intimate relationship between a teacher figure (be it school, college or university or any other educative course for that matter) and a student, Just like a police officer cannot be involved in any proceedings with a person they have any kind of relationship with, just like a juror cannot sit on a jury of a trial where they have any foreknowledge of the defendent. It creates a possible area of bias, a student could for example sleep with a lecturer for a more positive attiude towards a submitted paper.

this possibility needs to be prevented by law.

 

Although I'm pretty liberal in what I consider OK in terms of relationships, teacher/student pair just seems wrong in so many levels, even in universities. But only as long as the relationship can spur suspicion of favorism, ie. until the final course's grades have been set in stone.

However, forcing the couple to hide their affection isn't going to solve the problem. The high expectations during flirtation could, in many ways, carry much worse odds at favorism than going public from the word go. "You can't have a boner AND rational thought at the same time."

 

I'm not too keen on school pairings either, mostly due to the position difference, although age can also be an issue. I could see it if the student is a junior/senior and the "teacher" is actually a trainee (so a university student), but it's still a no if the two are actually a teacher and student.

In university, I don't like it much and I find it a matter of very poor taste, especially if the professor is actually teaching the student. I'm more inclined to leave it to the university policies though, since students are (supposedly) more mature* and tend to be of legal age anyway. It certainly is a problem if their personal relationship interfers with their work, however.

I'm not saying one is perfectly ok and the other isn't - both are iffy cases, but you need to draw a line somewhere. In my case, the two situations fall on the different sides.

*: compared to high school students, at least.

 

Maybe I'm misinterpreting what you copied over, but it seems pretty clear that the law specifically applies when the person is at least 16 (which is the age of consent in most states) and 18 (when the person becomes a legal adult). So it's not "of any age", it's for people over the age of consent, but who are still legally minors.

ALONG WITH

AND THIS

The problem is if you'd have to make such a law apply in all cases, even in cases when there isn't any reason to believe a conflict of interest exists or when no favoritism is in play. I think it's reasonable to say that you shouldn't form an intimate relationship with a student while you are teaching them, but to ban all types of student/teacher relationships at a university level also seems wrong.

Shaman already pointed out an example of an underclassman who is being taught by a grad student. (I taught as a grad student, and I can say that most of my students were only a few years younger than me. I was 23 when I was teaching, and since I was teaching sophomores, they were probably about 20.)

Also while I was in grad school - and I do not think this is at all uncommon - many of my fellow grad students were quite a bit older than I was. I was more of an exception than the rule of being in my mid-20s when I graduated. Many people were in their late 20s or 30s when they graduated. Is it so hard to conceive that one of these students could not form a genuine relationship with a professor? The reason I bring this up is because that exact thing happened to one of my peers. She was in her late 20s, she formed a relationship with a professor in his 40s, and they got married shortly after she graduated. As I understand it, she never took a class in which he taught, and so there was never a conflict of interest concerning grades.

 

The current form of the law states just that. The proposed bill would redact the under 18 part (the part I put in bold), making the only qualifier 16 and over and not limiting the upper end.


It looks like this is already law in Texas, though I don't really understand the text of the law:

See: http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.21.htm#21.12

That seems unclear to me, but it's said elsewhere that this means sexual relations between educators and students of any age are illegal.

See: http://www.totalcriminaldefense.com/news/articles/sex-crimes/teacher-student-sex.aspx

 

I don't know, there appears to be a couple of snags in the "any age" since in one case a teacher had sex with an 18 year old student and the charges were dismissed. I've also read where these laws are in specific statutes protecting minors -- once the person is no longer a minor the statute really doesn't apply.

In any case, the Texas law does not apply to universities or colleges.

 

I am a teacher, I have adult students. As long as I am teaching them they are my students, not friends or romantic interests. When they are finished with my courses they are the same as everyone else. Some becomes my acquaintances, I even dated an ex-student briefly and I keep in touch with several. I would find it awkward to date someone who was still studying where I work but that has more to do with it being a very small school than anything else. If I was working at a huge college I wouldn't have any problem dating a student as long as it wasn't one of my students.

 

Oh yeah, forgot the "...but only if it's YOUR student we're talking about" qualifier.

A random teacher/professor pairing with a random student where they are not and will not enter the teacher/student relationship during the student's normal course of studies is fine, IMHO. Less likely to happen in smaller schools, but quite within the realm of possibility in a larger one.

 

But not any educator and any student. Look at the very first line of the law:

So we're specifically talking about employees (not limited to just educators) in primary and secondary school. The primary school part seems like it would already be well covered by numerous other laws - kids in primary school have not yet reached the legal age of consent. So it's the second part - the kids in high school. It appears that this law simply closes a loophole - while the age of consent in Texas is 16, a teacher can't boink a kid still in school, irrespective of the kid's age.

And I don't have a problem with that law, as most people graduate within a few of months of the 18th birthday. (It's usually that calendar year anyway.) It doesn't say anything about the law applying to anything past high school, and I'd say it would probably be illegal for it to do so.

 

I think you're mixing up the two references ... the first is a law and proposed bill to amend said law in Michigan, and the second is a law in Texas. The MI law/bill makes no reference to primary and secondary schools. The TX law does.

 

You're right - I did copy that text from the Texas statute, not the Michigan one. The reason I didn't think that mattered much is because you said the same law is already on the books in Texas (twice, in fact). So which is it? Same or different, and if different, what's different?

Specifically, my question would be the first subpart:

In such context what does "emancipated" mean. I typically only hear that word used in reference to freedom from slavery - I'm not sure what it legally means in this context. (Although it would certainly seem like most people would be free to do as they wish upon reaching 18 years of age.

 

I assume it refers to a teenager who becomes legally an adult and 'separated' from their parents (or equivalent) as their legal guardians.

 

And if 8 is right, that happens at 18 - meaning it is IDENTICAL to the Texas law - it covers the period up to the point you're 18. It fills in the gap between age of consent (16) until you're considered an adult (18).