Alex Morse is the mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts and, presently, a Democratic Party candidate for the First Congressional district of Massachusetts, a seat currently held by Richard Neal, a former mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts and the sitting Chair of the US House Ways and Means Committee, among the most powerful legislators in Washington of either party. Morse is hoping to ride the wave of success for progressive candidates in the wake of Bernie Sanders' candidacy for President and the success of such progressives as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Presley, and, most recently, Cori Bush in Missouri. At thirty-one, he has a political record as the youngest elected mayor of Holyoke, where he was initially elected to office just after graduating from Brown University at age twenty-two. His tenure as mayor of Holyoke has not been stellar, but, aside from the odd embarrassing incident attendant to the lives of impetuous young people who plunge themselves into the ever-present public eye, he has, as far as I can tell, done a reasonably good job of acting as a professional municipal chief executive. At any rate, he is running a primary campaign against an extremely powerful Congressional power broker on the appeal of his nominal support for progressive policies, his professionalism as Holyoke's mayor, and, if nothing else, the potential diversity of his perspective as a gay man in a period when the stigma of homosexuality continues to break down.
In addition to Morse's service as mayor, he has served intermittently as an adjunct professor, presumably in political science or perhaps city planning(?), at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, my alma mater. At some point in his career as a part-time educator, Morse apparently engaged in sexual relations with certain UMass students who he had encountered through gay dating sites and at campus Democratic Party events. As a result of his actions, the College Democrats of Massachusetts have issued allegations against Morse stating that he abused his position of power, both as an instructor and as a Democratic Party office holder, to solicit sexual relations with college students. The allegations cite an email sent to the Morse campaign from three college groups accusing Morse of "regularly matching with college students" on dating sites and messaging students on social media "in a way that makes these students feel pressured to respond due to his status." For his part, Morse has denied ever having had sexual relations with any of the students under his instruction, a violation of university policy governing instructors (see Dusty Christensen, "Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse: 'I have never violated UMass policy," Daily Hampshire Gazette (August 10, 2020, 6:48:46 PM), at: https://www.gazettenet.com/Alex-Morse-response-to-allegations-of-sexual-relationships-with-students-35657423). The university's Office of Equal Opportunity is, apparently, undertaking an investigation of accusations against Morse, in relation to his service as an instructor for the university, that will, I presume, center on the question of whether Morse did anything inappropriate with students directly under his instruction.
The accusations being issued here relate specifically to power relations as a component within the sex lives of individuals. In particular, Morse contends that he never engaged in any sexual relations with college students that were not entirely consensual in nature. However, under what conditions can we argue that the consent offered by an individual is compromised by uneven degrees of power exercised by each party to a sexual encounter? Is it possible for a college professor to engage wholly consensual sexual relations with a member of the student body even when the professor does not exert a direct influence over the academic life and performance of the student? Clearly, as far as the College Democrats of Massachusetts are concerned, the answer is no - the power relations involved here are too heavily stacked in favor of the faculty member to enable a student to offer their consent. This is a remarkably stark and ugly principle to hold against individuals occupying either of the positions under consideration in such an encounter! It is one thing to argue, rightly, that professors should not be embarking in sexual relations with their own students, if only because such a scenario implicitly poses the likelihood of abuse. It is another thing to argue that an academic professional in his twenties, with a particular set of intellectual interests and personal attractions, should be expected to categorically exclude, under every set of circumstances, individuals in the student body with similar interests and attractions because of the effects of hypothetical status asymmetries on consent.
There is a lot to unpack in any consideration of the propriety of sexual relations and the application of any definition of consent between adults entering into a sexual relationship. Obviously, professional/hierarchical status differences between individuals introduce problems, especially in employment and education. Age differences are also highly pertinent. In Morse's case, moreover, sexual preference introduces a particularly visceral dimension in consideration of individual actions. Pointedly, as Morse has argued, the College Democrats have painted the caricature of a predatory gay male, trolling social media and dating sites to entice vulnerable college students to engage in sex. It is worth asking to what extent these allegations might have gained traction if Morse was not a gay man, vulnerable to particular stereotypes of gay men. Finally, we obviously have to consider the political context in which these allegations have emerged, during the course of primary campaign against one of the most powerful Democratic politicians in the entire US. It wouldn't, in this respect, be necessary for Neal's campaign to have any role whatsoever in the allegations being made by the College Democrats to perceive that a wide array of interests in the Democratic Party, both in Massachusetts and nationally, stand to benefit from the victory of Neal's campaign over an insurgent progressive challenger. All things considered, Morse really doesn't stand a chance at unseating Neal. He never did, and for a little group of college students to come along and publicly drag Morse's sex life through the gutter is more than simply unnecessary - it is the cruel and personal exaction of a grudge against the progressive Democratic insurgents waged independently by a puny constituency within the larger Democratic Party fold.
College instructors, either tenured or part time, have the right to a private sex life to the extent that their actions don't transgress the specific limitations that academic integrity imposes on them, either by virtue of institutional restrictions or simply honorable behavior. Clearly, there a lot of times that professors, like every other category of professional, engage in sexual encounters for which they should rightly face scrutiny. On the other hand, every constriction that we place on the sex lives of individuals invokes a vicious deprivation of moral freedom in the most intimate segment of people's lives. To suggest that someone like Mayor Morse was acting inappropriately in pursuing sexual relations in conformity with his own interests and preferences because of the particular positions he held is worse than mere political opportunism. It's an indictment against the rights of free people to pursue their own sexuality.
