Harvard bans sex or romance between professors and undergraduates

Harvard University has placed a total ban on professors having "sexual or romantic relationships" with undergraduates, joining a list of colleges that have taken similar steps.

Many universities in the US discourage but don't ban sex between professors and students. While a national professors' group doesn't favour prohibition, recent moves by Harvard, Yale University and the University of Connecticut suggest the tide may be turning.

"Undergraduates come to college to learn from us," said Alison Johnson, a Harvard history professor who chaired the panel that wrote the new policy. "We're not here to have sexual or romantic relationships with them."

Harvard's earlier policy was narrower, specifying relationships with "one's students" are inappropriate - suggesting that relationships were prohibited only when a student was in a professor's class.

Under US Education Department investigation for its responses to sexual assault and harassment reports, Harvard began a university-wide review of its policies in 2013.

The ban on faculty-student relationships applies to Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences, whose members teach most of the school's undergraduates. The change was mentioned in a longer document revising the division's sexual harassment policy published this week.

The change also prohibits Arts and Sciences faculty from having romantic or sexual relations with graduate students under their supervision. The restrictions apply to laboratory workers and dissertation advisees.