Once a department concludes an investigation, it usually turns a formal report over to an appointed committee, which decides whether the complaint is legitimate and, if so, withhold the accused professor's tenure, or to fire him or her, Kraemer said.

Raising awareness

'Programs need to train professors and students in what sexual harassment is, and sensitize them to it,' said Morrison.

Prior to training, some professors may even be unaware that kissing and hugging students is inappropriate, she said.

Workshop trainers explain that sexual harassment involves unwelcome sexual attention to people with less power, and they examine two main types of harassment. In quid-pro-quo harassment, the harasser links a sexual favor to a job favor; in 'hostile-environment' harassment, the harasser makes offensive gender references that hurt a student's ability to learn.

Morrison and Florence Denmark, PhD, who chairs PACE University's Psychology Department and was APA president in 1980, have led sexual-harassment workshops at their respective institutions and at meetings of the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology.

Their workshops focus on sexual dual relationships that involve power differentials. This kind of sexual relationship, if one person exerts job-related control over the other, is likely to be a violation of Standard 1.19 of APA's ethics code. The standard prohibits psychologists from engaging in any exploitive activities with subordinates and from all sexual relationships with those supervisees in training or students they have evaluative or direct authority over.

Such students would include those for whom a professor has a vote in determining whether or not he or she can remain in a program, said Stanley E. Jones, PhD, director of APA's Office of Ethics. Jones also indicated that Standard 1.11 prohibits sexual harassment and, along with various other standards, is relevant in faculty-student relationships.

Relationships involving power differentials can happen between tenured professors and junior faculty members, 'but typically they're professor-student relationships,' said Denmark.

They also usually involve female students and male professors. It's the typical pattern because 'sexual initiation is culturally a male prerogative,' said Judith Worell, PhD, head of the women's studies department at the University of Kentucky.

Sexual come-ons from faculty members are particularly damaging to graduate students, said Worell.

'When students reject mentors' advances, [mentors] can write negative recommendation letters, or prevent students from getting fellowships,' she said.

Amorous student-faculty relationships poison other students' learning environments and lower student morale, said Morrison. When a professor favors a student, other students feel bitter and resentful, she said. Also, if a student-professor relationship breaks up midsemester, the professor could retaliate by doling out a poor grade.

'People are always attracted to others who are in power, and they're flattered when people in powerful positions pay attention to them,' said Denmark. 'Professors need to learn that it's wrong to abuse that power.'

About a quarter of interns in clinical psychology training programs harbor feelings of attraction for their supervisors, according to a study led by Emil Rodolfa, PhD, a supervisor in the clinical psychology training program at the University of California at Davis.

If the attraction turns into excessive flirting with professors, or blatant student come-ons to professors, 'it is the professor's duty to set limits,' said Rodolfa. Since harassment laws protect those in subordinate positions, and hold those with more power responsible, professors must stop students' sexual advances, he said. As soon as a student makes sexual advances, 'a professor must?clearly, but politely, indicate the professional nature of their relationship,' said Donald Bersoff, PhD, JD, a professor at Villanova Law School and the Medical College of Pennsylvania-Hahnemann and a member of APA's Board of Directors.

Safe learning environments

Despite misconceptions to the contrary, students grossly underreport sexual harassment because they fear retaliation, said Morrison. In some cases, professors continue to violate students without realizing that they're sexually harassing them and causing them discomfort.

More than any other group, professors need education about sexual harassment, Worell said.

'There's a surprising degree of ignorance out there about what sexual harassment really is, and we need to change that,' said Morrison. 'What used to be acceptable simply isn't tolerable in today's climate.'