This story popped up on my radar screen today: Professor, ex-student tie the knot.
Muata Kamdibe and Crystal Domingues aren’t looking for anyone’s stamp of approval – not from their resistant families, curious colleagues, or a gossip-prone public.
For two months, the couple managed to keep their romance a secret from everyone, knowing the kinds of whispers and judgments their 18-year age difference would spawn – as well as the fact that Kamdibe, 36, a Rio Hondo College professor, first met Domingues, 18, when she was a student in his class last fall.
But it all publicly tumbled out two weeks ago, when Domingues was reported missing by her family, then tracked down by a private detective Feb. 7 to Kamdibe’s home in Irvine.
Well, that’s one way to start off with the in-laws.
Kamdibe and Domingues were married last week in Las Vegas.
The couple said they were both attracted to each other during the semester but didn’t start calling and texting each other until after the semester ended.
Rio Hondo doesn’t have a policy on student-instructor fraternization, so Kamdibe was never at risk professionally.
Still, both said they were shocked to see that a scant two months later, they were already headed toward the altar – in secret.
“We didn’t tell anybody,” Domingues said. “It’s our choice, and we’re not seeking approval from anyone. We’ll deal with it afterward.”
“She has all the qualities I like and want in a woman, and the only obstacle was the age,” Kamdibe said. “I know people don’t agree with my decision, but that’s OK. They don’t have to.
“It’s the way I feel all people should live: Do what feels right for you, and just go with it.”
Bold emphases mine. Pasadena City College does have a policy against professors having romantic relationships with students enrolled in their classes, a policy developed by a committee I chaired. I chose to chair that committee as part of my effort to make amends for my own misconduct; between 1995-1998, while in the throes of serious alcoholism, I had a series of “consensual” affairs with female students. In my sobriety — and following a religious conversion — I spent several years making amends both to the students involved and to the institution itself. One tangible aspect of those amends was to work to create a policy to prevent the very sort of thing I had engaged in. (Interestingly enough, at the time I was misbehaving, no policy existed barring affairs between professors and their current students.)
I’ve been open about my past, even when doing so has invited scorn and opprobrium. The goal is not to attract attention, but rather to serve as an advocate for strong, sensible policies designed to protect students from faculty who might be inclined to abuse their position as I abused mine. My main work in this regard today is to work to mentor new faculty members, gently and firmly making the case that crossing this particular boundary can do lasting harm to all involved. What is technically legal (all of our students are over 18) is not necessarily ethical. A young student who may be initially enthusiastic about a sexual affair with a professor (and indeed, who may even appear to be the “aggressor”) may only become cognizant of the psychological damage inflicted years after the relationship ended. Consent — even enthusiastic consent — is no prophylaxis against abuse, not in a relationship with a significant age and power disparity.
So Kamdibe and Domingues are married. The latter has all the qualities the good professor “like(s) in a woman”, a phrase which makes me shudder. But what really grabs me is the final line of the article. My colleague (Rio Hondo is only a few miles away) says: Do what feels right for you, and just go with it.
In his Booker-prize winning novel Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee offers us as a protagonist a middle-aged professor in the habit of seducing his students. The professor, when challenged, says the same thing Kamdibe says, albeit with considerable more eloquence: “I rest my case on the rights of desire.” Pretty words, but monstrous in their implications. In a just world, my right to exercise my desire stops at the point where it interferes with the desires of those whom I serve. And experience tells us that those who are legally old enough to act upon their desires frequently don’t understand the full implications of doing so, and may indeed come to regret having done what “felt right” at the time.
Young people in love frequently make foolish decisions. Frequently (though alas, not always) their rashness proves educational. Over time, they make better and better decisions. One of the reasons why professor-student romantic relationships are so problematic is that those of us who teach are called to mentor and advise students as they go through this often chaotic process called “learning from your mistakes.” When we decide to shift from mentor to romantic partner, we become a participant in that process — all too frequently, we ourselves become “another mistake.” We foster disillusionment and mistrust rather than real learning.
Though I cleaned up my act by the time I was 31, I recognize that I have little right to judge Professor Kamdibe. A dozen years ago, I too would have “rested my case on the rights of desire.. on the god who makes even the small birds quiver.” Perhaps that god will serve the professor and his young wife well. I do not wish them ill, and I hope that their marriage is a long and happy one. As we know, what begins unethically can — occasionally — end gloriously. But my good colleague is old enough to know how dangerous it is to “just go for it”, and were he in my department, he would hear so directly from me. He’d only hear it once, and he might hear it as the same time I handed him a wedding gift, but he’d hear it all the same.
Even more than students being foolish, they’re not fully in a position to refuse. My mother still rolls her eyes about the professor who gave her a “C” because she wouldn’t go out with him–in her day, screwing your female students was considered a job perk, not actionable sexual harassment.
Dating a student who’s of age and no longer under your tutelage is one thing. I don’t think much of professors who would do it, but I don’t think permanent harm is likely to come of it. But a person of throughly mature years marrying an 18 year old after a whirlwind 2-month courtship is beneath contempt. It’s like he knows it won’t last, but he wants to leave a mark of himself on her permanent record. It’s selfish bordering on sociopathic.
You’ve clearly thought a lot about professor-student relationships. I’m curious about your thoughts on the difference (if any) between professors dating undergraduates and grad students, and the impact of the age difference (or lack thereof). I must admit I am thinking of a particular example of a friend of mine who is a very young professor (28) of graduate/professional students who are sometimes older than him and sometimes just a few years younger. Do you think that changes the power dynamics at all? Perhaps only for students not actually taking a class taught by him?
I have no problem at all with professors dating students — as long as those students are not their own, nor likely to be in the future.
And there is a palpable difference, I think, between a 28 year-old tenure-track prof dating a 25 year-old grad student and a 40 or 50 year-old prof hooking up with an 18 year-old undergrad!
I think your comments about professor-student relationships are right on. I especially identified with your statement, “my right to exercise my desire stops at the point where it interferes with the desires of those whom I serve.” I find myself in the uncomfortable position of being attracted to a much older, married professor. Not only do I understand how unhealthy it would be for me personally to act on this desire but I also realize how unethical it would be in that I really respect his wife and family. Your statement about how your desire stops when it intereferes with the desire of whom you serve really hit home for me because I’ve come to realize it would serve no one but me (if that). While my professor has shown no evidence of interest in me whatsoever, I find myself having a hard time shaking this need for his attention. I’ve found myself questioning what’s behind my desire, realizing the unhealthy ramifications of acting on the desire if the opportunity ever presented itself, and finding strength in your posts about the peril of when a mentorship turns romantic. I thank you for your insight. It has proved invaluable to me in my moment of ridiculous confusion.
I’m so glad, Shauna; I appreciate your feedback that this was helpful.
Hugo, a professor of any age has an enormous amount of power over his or her students. And “not directly my student” doesn’t solve the problem if you take a moment to consider how (pardon the expression) incestuous many departments are.
Myth, I was thinking of the geology prof dating the English major, rather than the English prof dating another English prof’s student. And if the Lothario in question is tenured, and his lover is in a class taught by an adjunct or someone untenured whom the professor can pressure, there’s a whole other set of problems.
Note I said there was a “difference” considering the age issues — that doesn’t make any such circumstance good, only potentially less toxic.
I agree with all of you because I am an educator too but with small kids, he forgot that we were together 6 years, I have 3 kids from a previous relationship a boy 17 and 2 daughters 15 and 18 year old. My 18 year old daughter 3 years ago was introducing him as a dad to her friends. His wife graduated with my daughter ( my daughter was at Sierra High because she was in a dual program at Rio Hondo school that she still attending ). I hard to go to Rio and see how faculty see you even though we got divorce 2 years ago not 3.
Well, I’m not an advocate of marriage in the first place, though I admit it seems to work for some people, so I don’t judge. But show me a couple (age disparate or not) who rush to the altar after knowing each other for just two months, and I’ll show you two blithering idiots.
As for the whole professor/student thing: while I have no problem with dating outside your societally-approved age bracket, I do think romantic entaglements where the two principals already have some kind of working relationship (whether student/prof, boss/secretary, whatever) are just dumb and frought with too much hazard to be worth the trouble. The working realtionship will inevitably impinge upon the personal one, and it will come down to having to choose between one or the other. And then, people being generally irrational, one partner will want the romance to continue while the other will decide that staying platonic in the first place probably was the better choice. Then you have the weird atmosphere that permeates the work/classroom environment as everyone else in the building knows what’s going on yet has to go on prentending they don’t, leading to all sorts of whispered jokes behind backs.
Just not worth it.
I give the marriage six months.
Boy, my spelling was atrocious in that one. Too early for me to be commenting, obviously.
Well I was with him since 2001, I can tell you that the relationship my last for a while because he knows how to manipulate specially someone young that not have enough experience in life and probably in relationships ting that he have. Losing wight is what probably drive him to do this because in our last e-mails 7 months ago he stead that he feel better about himself than even when he was in college. This is my last comment about this what ever i said wasn’t for paint was for been amassing how people change when they loose wight and for having a daughter that is this girl age.
I can see your point – I have read through your blog on Student – Professor relationships. However I am interested in further complicating your model of student-Prof. relationships. I am saying this for experience, because I have had crushes on my math professors continuosly, and only recently had an interest in someone outside the department.
I would argue, that its not what we want to learn from Professors, instead, that most of them seem on such a pedestal to us, that there is simply no other way for us to feel equal, to feel also needed in the society, but to sleep or have a social relationship with a professor. And I agree that a lot of students simply can’t accept that friendship or mentorship may be enough in place of sexual desire, but a lot of professors are just as scared of that as students desire that. Partly because it could destroy their reputation, and possibly – even worse – their career.
I think you simplify students beyond anything and take out the simple fact that they may be seeing a teacher for the first time as some one different to who they usually meet.
For me teaching is a completly selfless career, and someone pursuing it with passion and conviction, in my eyes is already cut out about the normal guys of the world.
It’s easy to brush it off and say – she is just seeing what he is teaching. But I truely believe it’s more. One wants to be near someone who believes in what they are teaching, who loves what they are talking about with every bit of their heart. In this world it is so rare, and incredibly attractive. Definetly it is not just the class, it is the particular qualities of the person.
I’ve been dealing with this topic on and off for years. Being a senior undergraduate, I can understand why these situations exist.
It’s incredibly refreshing sitting there being taught and shown something useful for your future career. You begin to admire their intelligence, their wisdom, and their care in equipping you with all the tools that you need to go on in life post-graduation. You sit there for hours, staring at the man (or woman) and when that lecturer begins to crack jokes and lets their wonderful personality shine through, you begin to appreciate them more than ever before. Over time, sometimes (most times?) unwillingly, this admiration and appreciation turns into infatuation, which can turn sexual if these emotions become rampant (and if you have a vivid imagination).
But what about age? Can a 20-year gap truly stop someone from growing these emotions? Personally, I believe that love has no bounds (not saying that anyone here is in love with a lecturer). But as society has shown, people are attracted to people for a large variety of reasons and age could or could not be one of those reasons. Once you find the “perfect” one, you’ll do anything to be with them.
I wonder if re-thinking norms of consent, or even the age of consent, is in order, at least in the college context. Related issue: Berkeley is having an ongoing controversy going back a year concerning an overdose at Cloyne Court and the mother of the student in question blaming the University and Co-op board for failing to act in loco parentis and allowing a drug culture to flourish in the co-op community. Both of these cases raise the issue of what happens to previously-sheltered 18- or 19-year-olds when they head off and suddenly are expected to instantly become adults on campus. Would it potentially be reasonable to consider, as we do with alcohol, that perhaps young people aren’t ready for a sexual relationship, or perhaps not ready for a sexual relationship with a person X years older than them, until they are, say, 21 or so?