News & Notes: Harvard professors banned from sexual relationships with undergraduates

In response to school-wide Title IX policy changes on the issues of sexual and gender-based harassment across the nation, Harvard banned its professors from having sexual relationships with undergraduates this week.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which oversees Harvard undergraduates, emphasized that the rule regarding teacher-student relationships needed to be clearer — specifically, the language now explicitly forbids undergraduates and professors from engaging in romantic or sexual relationships.

The restrictions also apply to lab workers and dissertation advisees.

Under the previous policy, Harvard’s policy was more vague, only specifying that relationships with “one’s students” are inappropriate — suggesting that relationships between professor and student were prohibited if the student was in a professor’s class, but not necessarily otherwise.

The University, along with its peer institutions, was also found in violation of Title IX regulations last year in November.

The University and the Office for Civil Rights implemented a resolution agreement in order to review the revised policies to ensure compliance with Title IX.