Exploring Faculty and Students’ Attitudes About Consensual Sexual Relationships and Sexual Harassment on College Campuses

Abstract

Over the last several years, there has been an increased awareness regarding consensual sexual relationships (CSRs) between professors and students. Specifically, there has been a growing movement for academic institutions to develop policies addressing, discouraging, and/or prohibiting these relationships due to the potential for sexual harassment cases. Even though the appropriateness of such relationships has been widely debated among the university community, a limited amount of empirical work has examined this issue with the majority focusing on attitudinal studies. The current exploratory study consists of a content analysis of 278 faculty and student responses to the question, “If there is a difference between consensual sexual relationships and sexual harassment, what is it?” Responses indicate that there are several overlapping themes for both faculty and students in how they view these differences, with a large number of responses specifically indicating themes such as “CSR is consensual” while “sexual harassment is one sided.” There are also some unique perspectives given by faculty regarding the complexities and acceptability of CSRs, who are generally more specific and nuanced in their answers. Considering the complexities of this issue, it is the recommendation of the current study that much more research fully exploring the attitudes of faculty and students is needed to develop a well-rounded and comprehensive policy.

Support for the Death Penalty in Cases of Rape and Sexual Assault: Variation between Victim Age Categories

“…Z = (b 1 -b 2 )/√(SEb 1 2 + SEb 2 2 ) 4. Both the sampling problems and respondent demographics encountered here are virtually identical to those communicated in other published works involving application of survey methodology (both face to face and online) at the study site (see Carrillo et al, 2019;Crittenden et al, 2021;Garland et al, 2016). Indeed, the researchers were warned early on that faculty responses to requests for access would be minimal.…”

Examining College Student Perceptions of Criminal Justice Outcomes Among Persons With Mental Illness

“… 4. Both the sampling problems and respondent demographics encountered here are virtually identical to those communicated in other published works involving application of survey methodology (both face to face and online) at the study site (see Carrillo et al, 2019; Crittenden et al, 2018; Garland et al, 2016). Indeed, the researchers were warned early on that faculty responses to requests for access would be minimal. …”

Sexual Harassment in the Academy: Harnessing the Growing Labor Movement in Higher Education to Address Sexual Harassment Against Graduate Workers

“…Many policies acknowledge the power differential between faculty and students and the legal liability if faculty violate those policies, but sanctions involve a wide range of possibilities, and due to employee privacy protections, it is unclear how many faculty members have ever been sanctioned/terminated for violating these policies (Richards et al, 2014). Both faculty and students believe there is a difference between consensual relationships and sexual harassment, although faculty, in particular, note the nuances in consensual relationships; many in this study, however, noted they would not engage in those relationships themselves (Crittenden et al, 2021). Interestingly, faculty who think there are fewer differences between consensual sexual relationships and sexual harassment are more likely to acknowledge the power differentials between faculty and students (Carrillo et al, 2019).…”