OK, I'll weigh in.

I have a very rigid code about these things. That a lot of 
inappropriate behavior happens doesn't excuse it.

When I taught, and when I was a therapist, students and patients 
flirted with me all the time, often outrageously. Of course it turned 
me on, but I didn't respond, because I had a responsibility not to, 
and because they weren't flirting with me so much as with my position 
of authority. This wasn't easy, as the women were often very close to 
me in age, and I might have been interested in other circumstances. I 
did date an adult student of mine in an ungraded non-degree extension 
course, but only after the course was over--we didn't even flirt till then.

Yup, lots of teachers and some therapists succumb to the temptation 
or initiate a flirtation. Therapists risk losing their licenses, and 
they should. Increasingly, teachers risk losing their jobs. That 
seems fair to me, whether it's a man coming on to a female student, 
or a woman etc etc etc. At the very least, the relationship distorts 
the class as a whole. And most of the time it's taking advantage of 
the student's pathology.

None of this is easy. Statistically, most people meet their mates at 
work, altho most workplaces discourage romance. Makes sense--it's 
where most of us spend most of our waking hours. So there are 
compromises to be made, and a lot of discretion to be exercised. And 
in our society women tend to marry up, though usually not by much. On 
average, for instance, men are three years older than their first 
wives, which means they're higher up the earning pool, and in most 
professions men still tend to earn more than women.

But the disparity between student and teacher is different in kind 
than that between doctor and nurse, say, or between an older and a 
younger faculty member. The teacher of young students becomes a 
parental projection, whether he or she likes it. To take advantage of 
this can be extremely destructive. When it goes as far as marriage 
the destructiveness is often more extensive--wife eventually grows up 
and dumps the prick.

And then there's the case at hand. Walcott is in fact pretty 
notorious. Some interesting anecdotes have been coming up on WOMPO, 
but there's been noise about him for a long time. And we're talking 
about a forty or fifty year age discrepancy. Plus what would seem to 
be an overwhelming sense of entitlement, coupled with a great deal of 
drinking. Trial by internet is a terrible way to go about things, but 
the poetry chair is a very public appointment. Like it or not, this 
was to be expected.

The least we can expect of people to whom we expose our 18 year olds 
is that they behave like adults.

Mark

At 04:29 PM 5/13/2009, you wrote:
>Martin Walker wrote:
>>Here's what can happen to you if you profess poetry at an academic 
>>establishment. Funny the way even Ruth Padel talks of "printed 
>>facts"when they are simply printed claims.
>>http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/walcott-pulls-out-of-oxford-job-after-sex-smear-campaign-1684037.html
>>mj
>>Du siehst mein Sohn, zum Raum wird hier die Zeit. - Gurnemanz
>>
>
>I just ordered a collection of Wolcott poems.  I did not own 
>one.  It was time to spit back.
>
>But of course given the Rupert Mudrock culture we live in, I know 
>about The Scandal. The Scandal is more important, apparently, than 
>the likelihood that Derek Wolcott is among the chief poets to emerge 
>from the former British colonial web. I also recall that in Academe, 
>Wolcott's "issue" acquired the same level of moral outrage as Roman 
>Catholic priests molesting boys in the Archdiocese of Boston. Poets 
>may be the unacknowledged legislators of mankind, but when did any 
>of us take vows of poverty (involuntary), chastity (oh sure...), and 
>obedience (throw me a bone and I'll hump your leg)?
>
>Well, yes it is less about sex than about implicit power exercised 
>over someone who most likely had none. That of course discounts 
>motives. How easy to play a straight-up political line and ignore 
>motivations.  Derek the Vile Seducer and abuser of trust.  Yes, 
>maybe Wolcott really did hit on a female student, crassly and 
>arrogantly. Maybe he didn't wait for the term to end. Maybe he just 
>found her astonishingly attractive and made a move. *Maybe she said 
>yes and then took it back*. You think David Mamet invented that poison?
>
>All the same I cannot believe that something going back to 1982 is 
>still "in play," regardless of the veracity of the allegations. And 
>I really do not care whether Wolcott had a sheep in his office, nor 
>am I concerned that he may have hit on someone long long ago in a 
>galaxy far far away as long as the female wasn't my daughter, 
>sister, or wife (I have none of the above, which is a nice way to 
>say I don't care if he was playing Angelo in his private production 
>of *Measure for Measure*). I almost wish I had kept a little list of 
>the graduate faculty I knew 30+ years ago who scored with their 
>female graduate students or their graduate students' wives. In 
>fairness, I also heard of a female English professor at Princeton 
>who reportedly (told to me by one of her post-Nassau Street 
>colleagues) drove one of her undergraduate male students to commit 
>suicide over a love affair that went sour. I will not use her name 
>(smart move, Kenny-boy!!). But nobody put her head on a pike, called 
>her a "cougar," or suggested she was a tramp with a Ph.D. They may 
>have *thought* it but nobody apparently said it. She just moved from 
>Princeton to Columbia. Social incest lives in the golden ghetto.
>
>This almost surely goes on in 2-year colleges too. It is perfectly 
>possible to gaze lustfully on a 19-year-old female student *who is 
>being blatantly seductive*. They *can* be that way even when the 
>come from semi-rural New Jersey. It is also possible to engage one's 
>mental faculties and recognize that implicit power and real age are 
>huge deterrents.
>
>It would be gratifying if the other two candidates for the Oxford 
>post told Oxford where to stuff their honors and declined the 
>office. But in the end whoredom is not only sexual, is it?
>
>ken
>
>--
>Ken 
>Wolman      http://awfulrowing.wordpress.com/ 
>http://www.petsit.com/content317832.html
>---------------------------------
>"All writers are hunters, and parents are the most available 
>prey."--Francine du Plessix Gray