UPDATED: Oct. 15, 2019 at 8:57 p.m.

Syracuse University professor Amardo Rodriguez published an essay titled “Feminists Betraying Feminism to Restrict Faculty-Student Romances” in August. This essay is a harsh misinterpretation of what it means to be feminist.

In his essay, Rodriguez uses the guise of liberalism to argue that university policies prohibiting romantic and sexual relationships between faculty and students restrict the freedom of women.

Rodriguez invokes discussions about restrictions placed on abortion and homosexual relationships as a comparison to the bans on these relationships. The failure to make comprehensible connections between the topics makes the paper appear inadequately researched — grasping at any straw that might momentarily make his argument seem reasonable. This is just one of the many logical fallacies that clutter the essay.

The essay makes a clear assumption that the only student-faculty romances that take place are between female subordinates and male superiors. The threads of this misogynism weave the entirety of the author’s biased opinion.

While the Women’s Concerns Committee worked with the Academic Freedom, Tenure and Professional Ethics Committee to discuss prohibiting romantic relationships between undergraduate students and faculty at SU, that prohibition does not exist merely for the sake of women students.

Rodriguez claims that these bans “infantilize and patronize women” at the hands of other women who think they know better. But in reality, the purpose of these bans is not to suppress, but instead to prevent the suppression that exists in coercive relationships.

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Rodriguez adds that if the power dynamic between students and faculty is problematic, then so is the power dynamic between faculty and other professionals of different standings.

That comparison isn’t fair. Students are paying to attend classes and professors are being paid to provide them with an education. The power imbalance is dramatic.

“Power is the foundation of all politics,” said Margaret Thompson, an associate professor of history and political science at SU’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

When an unequal distribution of power exists, coercive relationships are likely to develop. Creating safe and comfortable learning environments relies on our ability to place a certain level of trust in professors. It’s easy for that trust to be violated when these boundaries are crossed.

The essay suggests that these relationships are based on love — an assumption that a university cannot afford to make.

“If freedom should mean anything, and this is supposedly what the struggle for gay marriage was all about, it should mean every adult has the right to love who they choose to love,” Rodriguez wrote in his essay. “This right should be inviolable. Even rapists, child-molesters, and murders have this freedom that is now being stripped of college students and faculty by feminists and queer feminists.”

The ban on student faculty relationships is not restricting an adult’s right to love who they choose — it is restricting a person in power from acting on desire in inappropriate ways.

Rodriguez asks more questions in his essay than he answers and leaves the reader confused and in doubt, not in the way that Rodriguez likely intended. His misreading of feminism, which is crudely disguised behind liberal principles, serves as a way for Rodriguez to mansplain feminism to feminists. The reader is left to ponder why he is so angered by the bans.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, an essay titled “Faculty-Student Relationships: The dual role of controversy” was summarized incorrectly. Also, the amount of research on relationships between professors and students was misstated. The Daily Orange regrets these errors.

Kailey Norusis is a freshman English literature and history major. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at kmnorusi@syr.edu. She can be followed on Twitter @Knorusis. 

Published on October 10, 2019 at 2:23 am

Contact Kailey: kmnorusi@syr.edu