I’m not a kid by any means, but I may have been naive about this mentoring relationship. There are some factors in play that aren’t a typical part of the student-mentor formula. I’m classified staff he’s not-yet-tenured faculty (coming later in life to academia) at our university; we share several colleagues and friends in the broader field; we now know waaaay too much about one another to comfortably go back to student-teacher relationship, let alone back to the mentoring relationship. I also started to feel that this guy may be a liability to his department as he was coming off a bit predatory in some of his interactions with other young ladies in the department.

I sought out anonymous confidential advice from the university’s employee services. Because my PhD plans had now fallen through I wanted to get my own career perspective in line and felt I did not want to make trouble for anyone else. I can only say that this has been a lesson learned. I only now have to redirect my academic efforts. I didn’t lose a job or a fellowship.

But you can be assured I will be more prudent in the future…

It *is* sexual harassment, and it is a collegiate way of life, like combo floorwax and dessert topping. The gay dimension of this enhances the misogyny; the only boys who suffered through this were not manly, so who cares?

If this crap were so harmless, why did no one successfully complain about it for almost 20 years? If a brave kid could push his complaint as far as he could without endangering his career, why didn’t one kid speak out *and* be heard? Because every victim knew that’s how business was done in the Theatre Dept.

Colorado has damned few places for a theatre kid to transfer to, to get a degree in his field that will be respected by casting and talent agencies. UNC really doesn’t have any competition across several states, so where would a victim go? Also, parents tend to be marvellously understanding when a kid just coming out has a problem with a coercive lover — I’m sure the words “asking for it” never leaves their mouths….

And don’t think I’m neglecting the women damaged by all this misuse of power, I’m just emphasizing that there’s also a tacit homophobia along with the misogynistic belief that their students are toys to play with drugs and sex. That allowed this crap to perpetuate with each sleazy newhire and each class turnover.

And, of course this takes heat off the more traditionally-masculine departments’ traditions of harassment, for which the Athletic Dept. must be very grateful.

Sharon Block’s book Rape and Sexual Power in Early America has a nice description of the slippery (and very short) slope between coerced sex and rape. This informs my understanding of the Fulkerson case. IMHO there is no moral difference between coerced sex and rape, but there is a legal one. Fulkerson didn’t have a gun or a knife. The young man may not have feared for his life, but he may have (reasonably) feared personal and professional consequences for not acquiescing to sex. He seems to have decided that acquiescence was the easiest way out. That’s OK–women make these decisions all of the time. But I don’t think that’s legally rape.

Fulkerson’s also been charged with sexual exploitation of children, and had photos of naked children. I agree that there is a bigger picture about boundaries between faculty and students. If what the papers are printing about Fulkerson are true, then the lack of boundaries in the department/at the school provided him a safe place of employment, cover (everyone else is doing it!), and a pool of people to prey on.

Digger, I wouldn’t call the sexual encounter with the student reported in one of the Post’s stories rape–although I think it was clearly coerced sex. But it’s that larger context of no clear and appropriate boundaries between professors and students that provides the critical context for understanding how students get into these coercive relationships (which may also include rape.) But when you’ve been drinking and drugging and otherwise partying and looking like you’re having a great time with your professors and fellow students–well, how do you say “no” convincingly to other activities? It’s the lack of boundaries that was apparently tolerated in that department that gave faculty the tools they need to manufacture consent (or assent) to sexual relationships with their students.

And, on the question of finding an internal versus an external counselor that LadyProf and others raised: it sounds to me that a focus on the “psychological state of a young single woman in an affair with a semi-unavailable, authority-figure older married man” is exactly what this woman needs. As Mary suggests, she needs to be prompted by someone to think about what she wants, what she needs, and what she’s going to do to get it, rather than being sucked into being this creepy, abusive, manipulative guy’s emotional crutch. If she can find that at university counseling, that’s great, but I don’t think that a therapist needs to understand all of the ins and outs of the student’s school/work environment to be helpful. (Besides–haven’t most therapists/counselors been to college and grad school? They at least may have insight from their own school days.)

I think Susan’s advice is excellent, BTW. The dude needs to get his house in order, or make plans to leave his house, before he starts bothering young women with his *feelings.* This situation reminds me of a great line from Nora Ephron’s book Heartburn (at least I think it was), in which the protagonist describes her ex-husband Mark (modeled on Ephron’s RL ex-husband Carl Bernstein) thusly: “I thought it was so great that Mark was so in touch with feelings and emotions. Then I learned that the only feelings he was in touch with were his own.”

I was wrong about one thing — the initial sexual encounters were apparently consensual rather than coerced. It’s actually a lot like a case that Tenured Radical discussed earlier this year (her take on which provoked some controversy among her regular commenters).

The second article that goes into the permissiveness of relationships between students and faculty in the department seems a bit of a red herring to me. They’re conflating rape (criminal) with unprofessional (unethical) behavior. I guess it sells papers. Then again, if this quote from the second article is correct, the school may be in much deeper sh!t then they even realize: “”But when you looked around, everyone was behaving the same way he was,” said Alex Ryer, a voice teacher at UNC from 1999 to 2004.” An institutional culture of rape and exploitation.