In a community as small as Connecticut College, information proves difficult to control. Concrete facts transform into rumors as they pass between tellers, moving further from the truth with each translation. While the College recovered from spring break, one such rumor emerged. On Sunday, March 25, two separate sources told members of the Voice staff that Visiting Assistant Professor of History Bryan Knapp had been fired and was under Title IX investigation. At the time of this printing, the rumor of Knapp’s firing is false, but the investigation’s occurrence is true.
Professor Lisa Wilson, Chair of the History Department, confirmed on March 28 that rather than being fired, Knapp is on leave from the College. In order to protect the integrity of the Title IX investigation and the privacy of the students involved, the Voice will not release the identities of any student informants, but has received firsthand confirmation from witnesses that Knapp is currently under Title IX investigation for having romantic and sexual relationships with students. Though the sexual nature of some relationships constitute the most pressing concern under Title IX, one informant stressed that not all of Knapp’s alleged conduct fits under a single label.
“This is a pattern of behavior,” the source said, emphasizing that Knapp’s misconduct has operated “to varying degrees.” Beyond having romantic and sexual relationships with students, Knapp is said to have formed close friendships with students both male and female, sometimes taking them out to dinner or smoking marijuana with them. Among the alleged romantic and sexual relationships, the extent of Knapp’s involvement with students varies, but constitutes a violation of College policy and Title IX regardless.
“Information for Faculty, Administrators, and Trustees”—also known as the faculty handbook, or IFF, and available to anyone with CamelWeb access under the “Dean of the Faculty” within “Documents”—details the College’s position on student-professor relationships. It states that even in seemingly consensual situations, “a sexual relationship between a student and a faculty member raises serious concerns about the validity of the consent, conflicts of interest, and unfair treatment of others. Such relationships are prohibited at Connecticut College, unless the relationship commenced prior to a student’s enrollment at the College,” as would be the case if the spouse or partner of a faculty member were to enroll in a College course. Dean of the Faculty Abby Van Slyck confirms this to be a current and accurate statement of the College’s policy, adding that it was last updated and approved by a vote of the faculty on May 3, 2017, “after a long and considered process to ensure that faculty, staff and student handbooks are consistent with one another as they relate to the College’s compliance with Title IX regulations.”
While Knapp’s Title IX investigation has been confirmed by involved sources, Dean of Institutional Equity and Inclusion and acting Title IX coordinator John McKnight is bound by confidentiality measures from discussing the case and did not disclose its existence.
“[Knapp] is on leave,” McKnight commented, “that’s all I can say.”
Though he cannot personally affirm its existence, this investigation may be one of McKnight’s last cases as Title IX coordinator. In a comment not directly related to Knapp, McKnight noted that a hiring search for a new, full-time Title IX coordinator has been approved, and will be announced to the campus community shortly. McKnight assured the Voice that the search committee will include faculty, staff, and students; students outside the search committee will have the opportunity to meet with finalists during the on-campus interview period.
Similarly to McKnight, Dean of the College Jefferson Singer stated that his position forbade him “to comment on any personnel matter” when contacted. The Voice also reached out to Knapp for his response to the allegations, but he did not reply.
This semester, Knapp was teaching three classes, including a 100-level ConnCourse in History, the senior seminar for American Studies, and a 200-level course cross-listed between History, American Studies, and the Critical Center for Race and Ethnicity. As confirmed by Wilson, Knapp’s courses have been taken over by Associate Professor of History and Director of Africana Studies David Canton and Associate Professor of History and Interim Director of American Studies James Downs, with Canton teaching the ConnCourse, Downs the senior seminar, and both professors co-teaching the course in History/American Studies/CRE.
Despite the disruption, Wilson commented: “I am confident that these two professors will make the transition as seamless as possible for the students.”
Though changes of instructor came as a shock to many, members of Knapp’s senior seminar told the Voice that Knapp had created a unique classroom environment before his leave. By advertising details about his personal and marital life during class, they said, Knapp made some students uncomfortable, but inspired a reverent following among others. Like many professors, Knapp served as a personal and academic mentor to some students. This dynamic illustrates that while some of Knapp’s alleged actions are explicitly forbidden by College policy, others prove harder to classify.
Although the College’s policy on relationships between faculty and students may seem straightforward, even expected, protocol in these situations remains an area rife with debate. Not all colleges have policies on the matter, and among those that do, the particulars vary. In Feb. 2015, when Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences instituted a ban on sexual relationships between faculty and students, the Washington Post reported that “a small but growing number of colleges” prohibit such relationships, citing Yale and UConn as examples. A Sep. 2003 New York Times article adds Duke, Ohio Wesleyan, Stanford, the University of Iowa, the University of Virginia, and William and Mary College to the list, noting that the latter held “the strictest policy” of the group, as it “forbids consensual relationships between all faculty members and undergraduate students,” not just those over whom professors hold direct authority.
The question of direct authority marks a key divergence among policies, as Columbia University illustrates in stating that “no faculty member shall have a consensual romantic or sexual relationship with a student over whom he or she exercises academic or professional authority.” But beyond the distinction of direct authority, discussions at Columbia and other campuses prove that the debate over professor-student relationships are not moving in as singular a direction as some might expect.
In a Feb. 2017 opinion piece for the Columbia Daily Spectator, then-Barnard sophomore Toni Airaksinen argues: “While I concede that there is indeed a power differential between students and professors, this can often be mitigated or even reversed by the specifics of the relationship,” citing the case of former Northwestern University Professor Peter Ludlow as an example of how “a consensual relationship with a student can result in financial and professional ruin.” Though Airaksinen describes Ludlow’s relationships as “consensual,” Robin Wilson notes in the Chronicle of Higher Education that a graduate student “says [Ludlow] raped her one night in November of that year. Mr. Ludlow denies that accusation, saying they regularly had consensual sex and had even discussed marriage,” and an undergraduate, who was 19 at the time, alleged that at a bar, “[Ludlow] ordered alcohol and insisted she drink,” later spending the night with her, though the two did not have sex. Also in the Chronicle, Laura Kipnis, a former colleague of Ludlow’s at Northwestern, calls the situation a “Title IX witch trial.” The case is long and complex, too much so to recap entirely here, and was heavily disputed in academia-focused and mainstream news outlets alike. Among many others, Wilson and Kipnis’s takes are available online through the College’s library access to the Chronicle.
Despite its complexity—or better, because of it—the case crystallizes a debate about consent and appropriate conduct that is far from over, as well as evidence of the pressure to remain silent that plagues college campuses. Wilson notes that though the graduate student’s relationship with Ludlow took place before the undergraduate’s, the former had not presented complaints against Ludlow until the latter came forward with a lawsuit. For some parties, this provided grounds for skepticism; for others, it demonstrated that once one person decides to speak out, others will feel more comfortable to follow.
Like Ludlow’s, Knapp’s case contains some murky material. For some members of the community, Knapp’s alleged behavior in and out of the classroom was something of an “open secret,” known or suspected by many, but recognized officially by none, and it’s far from the first of its kind.
Knapp’s case shows us that information does not always remain within its intended channels, and if it spills out, it can have significant force. When it does, it takes careful listening and experienced testimony to parse rumor for fact.
