Unpleasant News about Former Students

Unpleasant discussions of sexual assault ahead.

News greeted me this morning that a former student of mine (FS for "former student"), now a tenured professor elsewhere, is facing allegations of sexual assault by a former student. I have been navigating a parade of reactions: shock, dismay, soul-searching, pessimism.

Shock: this isn't someone I'd have expected this kind of thing from. I mean, that's a sorry-sounding thing to say. Is there a "type" for men who sexually assault women? Whatever type I had in my brain, and however wrongheaded it was, FS was not that type. FS has a family, a wife and two kids. Had, maybe. He's gone dark on social media.

Dismay: the person making the allegation wrote a lengthy account of the relationship she and FS had. It's sad and sordid. Reading it, I started to see just how FS's charisma could translate into that kind of ego-boosting hero-mentor that some professors (especially but not exclusively male professors) become. I'm a fairly popular professor myself. It feels good to feel looked-up-to. I was also the kind of student who loved being noticed by professors I looked up to. Those good feelings can be a dangerous combination.

As the writer narrates it, a close mentor-mentee relationship developed into a social-media/texting affair, during which FS shared a number of explicit and TMI messages. This culminated in a visit, drinking, and an unwanted advance (forcing hands down pants and up shirt) by FS despite the student's protests. The relationship continued (this is not an unusual feature of abusive relationships). FS cooled and then decided to break things off. The student, an undergrad at the time their relationship started, was thoroughly confused, hurt, and from her account traumatized by the whole thing. She apparently reported the assault to FS's institution, but since she'd not filed a police report at the time, the institution said it could do nothing. A public post is understandable after traditional legal routes are exhausted.

Of course we're hearing only her side of this story, but the narrative she posted contained copious snapshots of social media interactions that--well, I don't see any way FS comes out of this innocent. Nor should he if her report is as credible as it seems. People who commit assault must face consequences. Ditto faculty who abuse student-teacher relationships.

Soul-searching: I've often had grave doubts about the ethics of teaching in a PhD program in my field. Statistics for graduates securing a tenure-track position aren't great. We tell prospective applicants that this isn't a path to set yourself on thinking a position just like your own professor-mentors is waiting for you. On another level, though, grad students manifest extremely high levels of stress. Washouts and attrition from mental-health-related issues (and this is separate from folk who simply decide this path isn't their thing) are common.

FS has long been one of the most successful alums we've had in my time here (I was not on his committee, so the credit I can take for that is limited). He was my go-to example of how things sometimes really can work out. And now?

So far as I am aware, no hint of inappropriate behavior between FS and a student ever appeared during his time with us. But was there something more we should have impressed on him, some well-duh-but-let's-stress-it lesson: Of course, you should never become intimate with someone whose grade or career you can control, someone who's placed their trust in you that you have their best interests rather than your libido at heart. Boundaries.

On another level, I think to my shame how lucky I and some of my colleagues (particularly those of earlier generations) are. Teach for any great length of time, and it's inevitable to have some students who are closer to you than most others. That closeness, most of the time, is innocent and mutually rewarding. But it's also risky. Appropriate kinds of closeness can all too easily slip into relationships that cross lines that ought not be crossed.

The realty of power differentials means that the more-powerful person can miss or misread (or ignore or rationalize away) cues from the less-powerful person that they aren't on the same page, consent-wise. I don't even refer primarily to sexual boundaries. There is a wide vista of inappropriate behavior potentials in teacher-student relationships quite apart from sexual violations, from favoritism to overwork to codependency. I can spot some times in my own history where, if things or the people involved (including me) had been even a little different, some problems might have developed.

That said, I have never gotten drunk and forced myself on someone.

I hope the survivor here gets the healing she needs.

Pessimism: I must also say that this experience adds to some others I've not written about, experiences where other male grad students have behaved in ways that make them dishonorary members of the sexist/misogynist/chauvinist club. The #ThemToo club.

"Remember," advised Twisty on the departed-but-not-forgotten I Blame the Patriarchy blog, "men hate you." Here I take her not as mind-reading every individual cis-male on the planet, divining somehow that they personally bear animosity toward non-cis-men. I take her as meaning that, in a culture like this defined by a long history of women being objectified, minimized, silenced, and marginalized in favor of men, it's hard for men not to have some degree of contempt for women written into their social software.

Like most systemic oppressions, male supremacy comes as the default firmware of modern-day USAmerica. Being socialized in this time and place means absorbing on mostly unconscious levels that men (white, well-off men in particular) occupy the top of whatever pyramid matters: wealth, power, attention, the benefit of the doubt. It takes constant patches and updates to compensate for that firmware, and in bad moments the mind can all too easily default back to the factory settings. I am not immune. No one raised and socialized as male in this culture is (needless to say, this firmware also has effects on women and non-binary/non-conforming folk).

There are times when I wonder whether having men in institutions like mine (as faculty, as students, as staff) is worth the disproportionate risk that they will mistreat women in some way. Of course women can and do abuse people, too. But men are statistically more likely to do so, and to do so to women. Wouldn't things be better without us? Thanos snap! But of course that's wrong-headed, self-pitying fantasy.

This isn't really about me except insofar as I'm saddened by it.

What a shame.