Miltenberg: “Former Student, Fair Game?,” Inside Higher Ed

Institutions tend to either ban student-faculty dating altogether or where a supervisory relationship exists. But they don’t ever say professors can’t date students who were recently — sometimes very recently — in their classes. … Princeton, like a growing number of institutions, has banned all student-faculty relationships, including for graduate students. As one graduate student put it, “Students should be treated by faculty as scholars, not as potential sexual partners.” And even though most other colleges and universities ban student-faculty dating where a supervisory relationships exists, virtually no institution requires professors to wait any length of time before dating former students. … Still, experts with different positions on student-faculty dating advise against adopting any kind of timeline for dating former students. Andrew T. Miltenberg, a lawyer who’s represented professors in numerous Title IX-related cases, said he hadn’t heard of any “sunset-type” provision in which faculty members can’t date former students for a given period of time. And in an environment in which more and more institutions are taking disciplinary action against professors who have had consensual relationships with students that then soured, he said, such a policy is not a good idea.

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