It’s time to ban staff–student relationships

Universities UK (UUK), the organisation representing Britain’s universities, has just produced a new policy document Changing the culture: tackling staff-to-student sexual misconduct. In this, they announced that personal relationships between lecturers and students should be ‘strongly discouraged’. As if that will make any difference. Academics should not be permitted to have relationships with undergraduate students.

I should first state that I have a ticket in this lottery. When working at another university, I alleged misconduct that included an undeclared relationship between a senior professor and an undergraduate in his department. What happened? I left, and he didn’t.