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Billy, that’s because it’s usually done quietly. Face-saving for the school and all.

The only reason this one made it to the public sphere is that the guy is filing a complaint against School “K.”

I also know somebody who married one of her professors from grad school after they hooked up during the semester. This kind of thing happens more often than you would think when profs and students do field work away from campus. They’re still married now and have two kids.

However, this was deemed assault. Getting a student piss drunk and taking her to a sleazy love motel is another case altogether.

Frankly, I don’t have a problem with professors and students dating, having sex, or even getting married, as long as the student and professor are not in the same class, the professor wields no authority over the student within the department or the university, and the relationship is reported to an appropriate authority (so they can determine if there actually is any authority wielded over the student).

Yes, I should have clarified that I was assuming the professor in question had authority over the student or some sort of grade-wielding ability over the student in question.

If the prof and student are not even in the same department and not in a formal professor-student relationship, then there’s not much to the relationship from an ethical viewpoint. But, yes, there should be some sort of code of conduct and the relationship should be reported to an appropriate “authority”, as you said.

It’s unclear in the story whether there was a formal relationship between the two or not. I assumed there was and wrote my comment under that assumption.

Clinton’s “intervention” didn’t do much except get the sentence reduced from 6 to 4 cane strokes.

Did the alleged rape take place inside the hotel room? There should be CCTV cameras around showing whether she was following him or he was forcing her in there. If the former, well, maybe she thought she would just go there to continue the conversation, but really, then there’s no case.

My former student goes there. From what she’s told I’d gather that odds are 90%+ ‘B’ is Chinese.

Whether it was sexual assault or sex between consenting “adults” is a matter for the police to decide, and is irrelevant as far as the university’s actions go.

What the university did (and may further do) is correct: a professor taking a student to a motel is completely inappropriate. The power difference is too great, especially in Korea, between student and professor, and this was rightly seen by the university as an offense that needed to be addressed.

Just for the inappropriate action of taking the student to the hotel (even if nothing happened) is inappropriate enough that at the very least he should be suspended, without pay. Firing should only be considered if there was sex involved. Even if it was consentual, sex between prof and student SHOULD be a firing offense.

If the allegations of assault are true, that is a separate matter, and the police and courts will decide on further punishment for that.

(I do remember a case at my uni back home where a tenured prof went on sabbatical and took a group students to India to help them with research and field work for their Ph.Ds. While there he sexually assaulted on of those students. The uni immediately suspended him while they investigated, and when they found that there was sex between the two, his tenure was stripped and he was fired on the spot. The rape charge itself and the criminal investigation was handled separately by the police.)

At my (Canadian) university a professor married his graduate student, who was young enough to be his daughter. I guess the thinking was that what happens between adults outside university is their business. But I know what you’re saying about Korea being different.

Darth Babaganoosh wrote:
What the university did (and may further do) is correct: a professor taking a student to a motel is completely inappropriate.

A clearly written code of conduct that gets enforced would protect both students and professors — the former from unwanted attention and the latter from spurious accusations (and vice-versa, but to a lesser degree).

Frankly, I don’t have a problem with professors and students dating, having sex, or even getting married, as long as the student and professor are not in the same class, the professor wields no authority over the student within the department or the university, and the relationship is reported to an appropriate authority (so they can determine if there actually is any authority wielded over the student).

When the professor and student enter the university, they are agreeing to abide by ethical and professional principles, but at the same time, they are human, and for many of them their school is their whole life and this may be the only venue where they end up finding love and romance and a future partner. Blocking off any chance of companionship would be cruel and impracticable in many cases, so setting up a realistic, fair, and ethical framework is the best option.

The problem is that right now there really isn’t any kind of protective framework, hence you have professors who think they can get away with luring a student into a hotel room and/or students who think they can gain favor by going with a professor to the hotel room, and then when things go really awry, you have a very bad case of he said-she said where there is the potential that a sexual predator will go unpunished or a blackmailer will destroy someone’s career.

Set down clear and fair rules and then make sure people know they’ll be enforced.

Jesus… Sort of like then-Pres Clinton speaking up for the US citizen vandal who was going to get caned. ;)

If Professor X hadn’t been into shagging his students, he would still have a job, where he could comfortably explore other sexual deviance.

I am impressed that the school turfed him. In ten years, this is the first time I’ve ever seen the old boys network not protect on of their own.

This is simply absurd…”Accordingly, the likelihood of this incident creating diplomatic trouble cannot be ignored.”
If the student is American then she ought not expect any American diplomats to care or help her. If she had illegally entered into N. Korea on purpose to cause trouble(or not),then that would be different.

@Tbonetylr

In a world that made sense, I agree with you. However, this is East Asia. China, Korea and Japan will take any chance they can get to turn something personal and isolated into a condemnation on the others’ culture, government and people.