CU policy on professor’s amorous relationships with students is inadequate

A weak policy at the University of Colorado system is failing to protect students from unwanted sexual advances and consensual sexual relationships. Professors, coaches, and other university employees are technically allowed to use their positions of authority to develop intimate relationships with students and athletes. There is always an imbalanced power in these sexual relationships, and many universities across the nation have already banned them following the direction of the NCAA.

CU has a long-winded policy about such relationships – discouraging them but ultimately allowing them as long as it is “disclosed.” If the student is not in a professor’s class or if the athlete is on a different team, the relationship never even needs to be disclosed.

CU President Todd Saliman referred to Administrative Policy Statement 5015 as a robust policy to protect students during an editorial board meeting with The Denver Post on Tuesday. He followed up in an email saying that the policy dealing with “Conflict of Interest in Cases of Amorous Relationships” was coming up for review next year.

“Pursuant to APS 5015, it is never appropriate for a faculty member to have an amorous relationship with a student they teach, advise, or have any authority over. For example, a professor could not have an amorous consensual relationship with a student in their class,” according to a written response to follow-up questions.

However, that is not exactly what the policy says. The policy says “direct evaluative authority not be exercised in cases where amorous relationships exist or existed within the last seven years.” The policy then outlines how a professor and student would disclose such a relationship and how the inherent “conflict of interest” could be addressed by removing evaluative authority — i.e. finding someone else to award grades to the student for their work. Nothing about that process tells a CU employee — coach or professor — that they are forbidden from pursuing sex with students.

We think that must change and urge Saliman to begin the six-month process of changing this policy today so it can be in place when the freshman class of 2025 steps on campus next fall.

Many 18-year-old freshmen’s worst nightmare is a man or woman in a position of power making sexually suggestive comments, sending flirty text messages or asking for a date. There is no good option for that teenager, especially when the behavior is indirectly condoned by university policy. We know such behavior is rare — university professors are professionals dedicated to teaching the next generation not lechers looking for a good time. However, abuses are well documented across the nation.

Colorado State University recognized this when it implemented a policy that explicitly bans all new sexual relationships between a professor or coach and a student or athlete. The policy describes the inherent imbalance of power that exists and aims to protect students and athletes from unwanted advances.

The University of Colorado also pointed to their policy regarding Sexual Misconduct which bans unwelcome or nonconsensual sexual relationships. In other words, it bans rape and sexual harassment — two things that are already illegal in Colorado.

Saliman said on Tuesday it was a high legal bar to prove “harassment.” To violate APS 5014 the behavior would have to be “so severe or pervasive that it limits or denies a person’s ability to participate in or benefit from the university’s education program or activity.”