Legacy

In the fall of 2005, Jamie* was a freshman: naïve, idealistic and trusting. She loved the Baton Rouge bar scene and began to go out regularly. She recognized one of the patrons as one of her professors — a particularly attractive professor — and when the opportunity arose, she didn’t see anything wrong with interacting with him socially outside the classroom.

“I thought he was an older, handsome guy,” she told me when we met at my apartment. “When I first signed up for his class, everyone was talking about how he was [a] teacher who parties with his students, you know, cool, whatever.”

She had heard her professor was friends with some of his students and would often hang out with them at bars and parties, even throwing a couple of his own.

“The first couple of semesters I had him, he was no different from my other professors,” she said. “But then three semesters later his reputation went from ‘Oh, he’s this fun guy’ to rumors that he does inappropriate things with his students.”

When purely academic relationships develop into social, romantic, even sexual ones, complication is likely to ensue. When is it a matter of grade-bargaining and favoritism? When is it legal? And when, if ever, is it appropriate?

“There should be a rule about a teacher who dates a student in a course they are teaching,” Patrick McGee, McElveen professor of English at LSU, said. “But you can’t forbid romantic relationships in general as long as there is no violation of law.”

As long as both parties are over 18 and consenting, there would be no legal question, but this isn’t always the case. At the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, for instance, there is a strict policy against teacher-student relationships. LSU has yet to adopt such regulations. Former chancellor Sean O’Keefe said establishing such a policy would be as unnecessary as establishing a policy against murder; some practices are so blatantly unlawful that bothering to make a university rule against them would be superfluous and ineffective.

“I don’t think it’s possible or even wise to write a policy that covers or prohibits all romantic relationships between teachers and students,” Louis Day, media law professor at LSU, said. “The University might promulgate a very narrow policy built upon the notion of a conflict of interest. But beyond that, I think the University is treading on dangerous ground, both for practical and legal reasons, if it attempts to regulate all such relationships.”

Charles Zewe, system vice president of communications at LSU, said that following the Pokey Chatman controversy, regulations against teacher-student or coach-player romances would be considered. “Parents who entrust their children to a university don’t want them to be fair game,” Zewe said. “We can’t have a situation where a classroom … becomes midnight at a singles bar.”

There was no formal investigation of Chatman and the alleged affair, but she decided to leave after nearly 18 years at LSU once rumors and accusation began swirling. She said it was clear that her “presence would be a great distraction during the NCAA tournament.”

While no rule exists forbidding relationships between students and professors, according to Venna Jones of LSU Human Resources, the University does have a policy for disclosing such relationships. “The responsibility of a faculty member who is involved with a student in his class is to remove himself immediately from evaluation responsibilities of the student’s academic performance, recommendations for further study, employment decisions, academic honors or awards,” Jones wrote to me in an e-mail.

LSU also has a strict sexual harassment policy, but the line between a harmless teacher-student relationship and a questionable situation can easily blur.

Jamie began running into her professor every week at a local bar, where the flirtation between the two seemed natural and inevitable: a furtive glance here, a harmless smile there. Then one night in September of 2006, he offered to buy her a drink. The next time he and Jamie saw each other, one drink became several, and the black and white boundaries blended to gray.

When Jamie’s charming teacher asked her to dance, she couldn’t resist. He was suave, experienced and her inhibitions had been loosened by gin and tonics and tequila shots.

“I had been drinking and he definitely did contribute to the fact that I was drunk. And so then we started making out,” she said matter-of-factly, with no sign of blush or giddiness or even regret.

Jamie’s professor joined her for an after-party at a stranger’s apartment, where he finally made his intentions clear. “He tried to have sex with me, but I wouldn’t have sex with him,” she said quickly, clearly eager to move past the subject.

Looking back on the night, Jamie felt conflicted. She was traumatized and believed the situation had been inappropriate. But she said all that had happened was too surreal to process. Her professor, on the other hand, seemed unfazed. “When I saw him in class his behavior didn’t change at all,” she said.

Jamie received an A in the class that semester, but she felt the grade was unwarranted. “I can tell you right now I didn’t deserve that,” she said.

Jamie had completed three semesters with her professor, and she assumed that when their academic relationship ended, their strange personal one would also come to a close. However, she continued seeing him out at bars every Thursday night. One night in particular in January of 2007 seemed like déjà vu.

“The semester after I had him as a professor, I was out with a group of friends I didn’t normally hang out with,” she said. “There was no one close enough to me to say ‘This is a bad idea.’”

He offered to buy her drinks and Jamie didn’t hesitate to accept. After all, she explained, he was no longer technically her teacher. The tension between them escalated quickly; the two drank and danced and made out until Jamie could remember neither how many drinks she’d had nor hours they had danced. As the night wore down along with her consciousness, she decided to let him take her to his house. “I remember just a flash of us kissing on his couch, then nothing,” Jamie said.

She awoke the next morning, confused and in pain. As the scene around her came into focus, she realized that her professor was having sex with her.

Jamie didn’t know what to think. She was mentally numb when he drove her home in silence that morning, not fully digesting what had happened to her. “People are always like, ‘Why didn’t you say something?’ but I was literally in a state of shock,” she said. Her mind flooded with questions: Was she partially guilty? Should she report him? Was this okay?

She felt her professor had taken advantage of her; however, she believed legal action would only complicate her life and publicly expose events that she never wanted to revisit. Jamie felt the blame couldn’t be placed entirely on her professor. “It wasn’t 100 percent him being this predator,” she said. “It was him definitely being in the wrong in some shape or form.”

Jamie also recognized elements of consent in her interactions with him. “I knew what I was doing as far as the kissing,” she said. “I was attracted to him at one point.” But she said she felt her former professor had “gone too far” without her consent. “The situation would have been fucked up regardless as to whether or not he was [a professor].”

After hearing Jamie’s story, I decided to approach her former professor and ask about his side of the story. I asked if he had ever had a romantic relationship with any student outside of class.

“Friendships, yeah,” he responded calmly.

I asked if it stopped there.

“Yes, absolutely.”

I asked him to elaborate. “I think that living in a college town, it’s inevitable that you’re going to see students in restaurants or maybe a bar or something like that, so I think the fact that there are going to be these types of encounters, it makes it inevitable to develop friendship or a passing … something like that,” he said.

He denied any interest in romances with students. “When it comes to romantic relationships, I mean, it’s one of those things where I’ve known of people at different universities that have gotten involved and it always ends in some type of marriage, divorce, something chaotic,” he said. “I believe after graduation if anything ever develops in a situation like that … it’s better than in a classroom environment because of preferential treatment … It’s easier to maintain friendships with guys, more clear-cut, not to give anyone the wrong impression.”

I asked about the incident Jamie had described to me.

He jumped back in his chair. “Wow, that’s heavy,” he said, confused. “I don’t know what you’re referring to or who you’re referring to. I’m obviously shocked and thrown aback by that. I’ve known many students … nothing like that has ever been … I’ve never been approached by anything like that, obviously. Okay?” He was visibly flustered.

He took a moment to compose himself and digest what I’d said — that a former student of his viewed their sexual encounter as inappropriate.

“I’m saddened by that,” he said, looking away. “It makes me feel pretty bad. I’m glad you’ve approached me about it. At least I’m aware now that someone out there believes that.”

I asked if he could offer any explanation as to why a student might have made such a claim. “Sometimes what happens is I find that the majority of my students are female,” he said. “And sometimes things are said because I may not have paid attention to them … I’ve had instances where I’ve gotten hate mail because I was speaking too much to so-and-so or not paying attention to so-and-so.”

I inquired if he had ever had sexual encounters with any students at LSU. He replied confidently that he had not.

“It’s one of those things where it’s better meeting people more my age, professionals, because it’s just not worth the career risk,” he explained. “In the end it’s just better to steer clear of things like that. Things can be misconstrued or manipulated. People will say what they say.”

Facing the question of whether LSU should follow suit with other universities, such as ULL, in establishing a policy against teacher-student relationships, he believes it should. “I think that there probably should be a policy because [if not], there would be too much of a gray area.”

Jamie disagreed. “You know, honestly, even though all this stuff happened to me, I don’t think every teacher-student [relationship] outside of the classroom would necessarily have to be this scandalous thing,” she said. “Sometimes there are professors who are young and the students are old. And honestly I don’t think a policy would stop the problem.”

It was hard for Jamie to open up to me in telling her story. “I was hesitant in doing the interview at first,” she said. “When it happened I went through this angry thing, a depressed thing, but almost two years later I can now talk about it.

“I realized that it would be good for people to kind of be wary and be more careful.” Although she is now both older and wiser, Jamie hopes other students like herself can learn from her experience when she was just a naïve, idealistic freshman.