University College London has become the third UK university to ban intimate relationships between students and lecturers, following in the footsteps of the University of Greenwich and the University of Roehampton. This move makes UCL the first Russell Group university to ban student-staff relationships.

UCL’s new policy, called the ‘personal relationships policy’, prohibits ‘close personal and intimate relationships between staff and students where the staff member has a direct responsibility for, or involvement in, that student’s academic studies and/or personal welfare.’ If the member of staff has a relationship with a student they do not supervise, they must also declare this relationship within one month to avoid disciplinary action.

The behaviour and culture change manager at UCL, Kelsey Paske, told The Guardian that this ban was important for recognising ‘positions of power and power imbalances within higher education settings, and to help prevent abuses of power.’

UCL’s new policy warns that these student-staff relationships may be seen as ‘grooming.’ Rachel Fenton, a lecturer specialising in sexual violence at Exeter, argues that these relationships ‘contain such an abuse of power that consent isn’t really there.’

This view is widespread in the UK student population. In a 2018 survey by the NUS and the 1752 Group, a group that campaigns against sexual misconduct by university staff, four-fifths of the students surveyed said they were uncomfortable with ‘predatory’ intimate relationships between staff and students.

Dr Anna Bull, who co-founded the 1752 Group, told The Guardian: ‘UCL’s new policy is the most stringent in the UK. If it is implemented as intended, it will help to enable a safer and more gender equal teaching and learning environment.’

In an investigation by The Guardian, a freedom of information request was sent to 122 universities. While only three universities explicitly ban romantic and sexual relationships between students and lecturers, 97 universities have policies on these relationships – but these policies mainly just discourage them. Over the past five years, only seven members of staff at UK universities have been disciplined for having intimate relationships with students.

This widespread lack of monitoring student-staff relationships across UK universities has been criticised by anti-sexual misconduct campaigners such as Dr Anna Bull, who commented that ‘much greater awareness of the risks is needed.’ Experts on sexual misconduct have argued that relationships where one person is in a position of power are at higher risk of ending in abuse.

This was the experience of Allison Smith, who started a relationship with her lecturer at Sussex University. Lee Salter, the lecturer, claimed that the university was not against the relationship. However, Salter became physically violent towards Smith, leading to his arrest and 18-month suspension in 2016. Following a review, Professor Nicole Westmarland stressed the importance of Sussex University developing ‘a clear policy’ on student-staff relationships.

Natasha Caruana, a University of the Arts London (UAL) lecturer, resigned from her previous job at the University for the Creative Arts after criticising colleagues for building intimate relationships with students.

In an Instagram post, she stated: ‘I stood up for what I knew was the correct and ethical way of behaving. There is a rich history of male academics having special friendships with female students (just Google it) and it won’t change until more of us call it out and put pressure on universities to change their policies.’

In response, the University for the Creative Arts said: ‘We wholeheartedly reject the picture as presented in the social media post.’