Could sending sexual messages online affect my academic career? [closed]

Question

So, suppose you're a grad student in some academic program in the US; suppose furthermore you're employed by the university (as a teaching/research assistant, say), and you message total strangers on the internet, looking for a sexual encounter. Some of the messages may be sexually explicit/implicit.

Is it possible that, if some stranger could be offended by this, the university could act against you in some form were the stranger to contact them about it? Would the relationship of the stranger to the university matter, even if one did not know beforehand such relationship? For instance, would the situation change if the stranger is a student of the university?

Of course there is nothing illegal in the US about these actions, but universities sometimes have much stricter codes. In answering this question, please keep "large public university" in mind, not some christian college.

Thanks!

Answer 1

As long as you send and receive these emails from home, on your privately purchased computer, using your personal email account, during non-work hours, and meet the people you contact off-campus, there is probably little the university can or would want to do -- this would seem to be your personal business. (Though it is not necessarily legal: sending complete strangers explicit messages could be considered harassment.)

But from the long list of "ifs" above, you probably already see where the rub is. Let's say, one of the people you contact doesn't appreciate the contact, finds out that you are a student at the university in department X under professor Y, and writes a blog post including all of this information. The local newspaper then picks it up after finding 3 other people who are also complaining. Suddenly, the university, department X, and professor Y are in the picture, and they're going to be interested in dissociating themselves from you. Now, if it turns out that you sent or read some of the emails from a work laptop at home, or from a work desktop during work hours, or on a work trip paid for by the university, or met some of your contacts in your office, or used your work email (a university-provided resource), then you're in trouble because all of these things suddenly expose you to university rules and regulations, as well as state law governing the conduct of employees.

The point is that if you're a regular grad student, your life is probably structured in a way that you can not consistently avoid all of the conflicts mentioned above, and that exposes you to being sanctioned by your university.

Answer 2

Here's an excerpt from a randomly selected sexual misconduct policy (Indiana University):

Indiana University prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex or gender in its educational programs and activities. Discrimination on the basis of sex or gender is also prohibited by federal laws, including Title VII and Title IX. This policy governs the University’s response to discrimination based on sex or gender, and all forms of sexual misconduct (which includes sexual harassment, sexual assault, other forms of sexual violence, dating violence, domestic violence, sexual exploitation and stalking. [...]

The University will provide a fair and impartial investigation and resolution for complaints and, where appropriate, issue sanctions and remedial measures. The severity of the corrective action, up to and including termination or expulsion of the offender, will depend on the circumstances of the particular case.

It seems to me that contacting a stranger with a possibly unwelcome explicit message would probably be viewed as sexual harassment.