Consistent with its commitment to professional responsibility in education, Trinity College affirms and upholds a policy which:

(i) rejects the abuse of power through sexual harassment of students by Faculty, and

(ii) discourages amorous relationships between Faculty members and students, and forbids them when the Faculty member has responsibility for the student through teaching, advising, departmental, committee, or other professional obligations.

PRINCIPLES:

1) Professional responsibility: the Faculty is responsible for creating an environment in which learning can take place, an environment which includes freedom from invidious discrimination based on gender.

2) Academic Freedom of students: both sexual harassment of students by Faculty and amorous relationships between students and Faculty can infringe students’rights to arrange their course schedules and to choose academic advisors in a way that best serves their academic goals, to decide freely upon majors, and otherwise to make uninhibited use of the College’s educational resources.

3) Conflict of interest: romantic or amorous relationships between Faculty and students, even when apparently consensual, tend to distort the objectivity necessary to maintain professionalism and to fulfill the educational mission of the College.

4) Abuse of power: by virtue of their professional roles within the College Faculty members exercise significant power over students including the ability to determine grades and academic advancement, interactions of praise and criticism, the issuing of formal evaluations, advising, and provision of recommendations for future education or employment. When Faculty members (subtly or overtly) inject sexual pressure into the Faculty-student relationship, they abuse that power.

POLICIES:

Sexual harassment of students is prohibited and subject to institutional sanctions. Sexual harassment is defined as non-consensual sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, or other sexually related verbal or physical conduct, on or off campus when:

submission to such conduct is made a condition, explicit or implicit, of an individual's education or employment; or

submission to or rejection of such conduct is used as a factor in or basis for decisions affecting an individual’s education or employment; or

such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s education or employment by creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive educational, living, or work

Amorous relationships between Faculty and students are improper when the Faculty member has responsibility for a student through teaching, advising, departmental or committee obligations. Because of the fundamentally asymmetric nature of such relationships, Faculty members are held responsible and are personally liable to formal action.

As a general rule, the College discourages amorous relationships between Faculty and students even outside the context described in item B above, for such relationships may also lead to conflicts of interest, abuse of power, and infringement of student academic freedom. In any case, Faculty members must understand that, even in the context of an apparently consensual relationship, they could be at risk of formal action by the College as well as personal legal liability if a complaint is brought against them by a student. Consent of the student may not be sufficient to shield a Faculty member from institutional and/or legal action.

PROCEDURES

Anyone who believes him- or herself to have been sexually harassed by a Faculty member is encouraged to consult informally with someone about the matter or to make a complaint to the Dean of Faculty. The person one may consult informally may be a friend, a Residential Assistant, another Faculty member, the Faculty Ombudsman, or an officer of the College, among others. With respect to sexual harassment the following offices may be particularly helpful: the Women’s Center, the Dean of Students Office, the Chaplain, and the Counseling Center. All informal communications will be oral, usually one-on-one, no records will be kept, and no action may be taken at this level with respect to confronting or disciplining the Faculty member.

The procedures for making a complaint against a Faculty member are published in Appendix A.4 of the Faculty Manual. No actions concerning a Faculty member’s behavior which could be construed to affect his or her status at the College should be taken outside of the procedures of Appendix A.4.

(Passed May 4, 1993; Amended May 5, 1998)