re: #143 Nyet

Such as? I think this whole brouhaha boils down to something fundamental.

Sure, you can argue that 18 yr olds are “adults” and should be able to handle college on their own. OTOH, should those in power positions, those who run and work in the institutions that these young people attend, show their own immaturity in not being able to keep a bright line intact for both students and those authority figures? I don’t think young women (or men) actually have the kind of experience and tools with which to manage their freedom from their previous background of family and community. College is another world for them and requires adjustments and new ways of seeing the world, of being “free” and on their own to say and act as they please. But let’s not equate sexual activity with adult maturity and the rigors of academic life, something those in positions of authority in these schools should know.

Age itself doesn’t determine maturity.

Even as a 32 yr old and as a feminist, I refused to curry favor with those who taught me through such activities as giving in to a sexual attraction. I had already seen enough of that in the workplace to know that it didn’t, in most cases, turn out well for the woman (since in every case the workplace “superior” was always a man).

And Kipnis is defending the actions of a male professor for exploiting the drunken feelings of a young student? He should have never have put himself in that situation to begin with. He is the one who should have known better and showed his own maturity. For a “feminist” to, in effect, sanction such behavior is outrageous, IMHO. Harvard has banned all sexual relationships between student and teacher at the undergraduate level, which is more appropriate, given the younger ages of those students. Any teacher who cannot find a partner outside of his or her work place and preys on young students, whether or not the student initiates the relationship, is a poor teacher indeed. This may also be about “academic freedom” but even that can be determined by one’s own actions.

But to file a Title IX charge against Kipnis? A bit of overreaction which just exemplifies what I’ve tried to say.

And her “essay” certainly sounds pretty damned reactionary. Even down to this: “For the record, I strongly believe that bona fide harassers should be chemically castrated, stripped of their property, and hung up by their thumbs in the nearest public square. ” Whoa.