<p>A professor in Singapore was recently convicted of receiving bribes (some of them sexual) from a female student. He was jailed for 5 months. She was (legally speaking) left off scot free. I don’t know the ethics standards for lawyers in Singapore but in the U.S. would she be able to pass the character and fitness portion?</p>
<p>Note: She was not charged partly because she was a woman (not being sexist but I know a thing or two about their legal system) and because she was a student. However, she was a willing player in the scam. Also, the prosecutor needed her testimony. </p>
<p>Also, if this was in the U.S. would she still have strong career opportunities after this? I would think bribery would not be something the bar people would look highly on but IDK.</p>
<p>Several years ago, then Harvard student, Kaavya Viswanathan, published a novel
containing numerous passages widely considered to have been plagiarized. However, she went on to graduate from Harvard and then attended Georgetown Law School.</p>
<p>Is Kaavya Viswanathan an attorney? I saw that she attended and graduated from Georgetown Law and going on to a clerkship, but I could not find a mention of her being admitted to any bar or being employed (except as a 2L summer associate) in a law firm.</p>
<p>Given that the question was about bar admissions, not actually attending law school, it’s a pertinent question.</p>
Likely, because of the inequity in the balance of power (assuming that the bribes and sex were his idea) - “Sleep with me or I’ll make sure you fail out of law school”. No different than a boss demanding sex to keep one’s job. The woman was the victim of a blackmail scheme. What “punishment” would you suggest for someone who gives in to being blackmailed?</p>
<p>Now, if this were her idea, then it’s a different situation.</p>
<p>@chedva: It was basically both of their ideas. Essentially they started flirting and eventually this led to him giving her better grades in exchange for sex and expensive goods. </p>
<p>Also, while the prosecutor likely didn’t prosecute her partially because she was a student, the prosecutors office also didn’t prosecute another woman in a similar scandal in Singapore, but the man got prosecuted (acquitted though). In that case, the man was charged with corruptly receiving oral sex from a woman in exchange for government contracts. The woman was in her mid 40s and a senior level executive at a large company (I believe Oracle if I remember correctly). There was no power or age gap in that case. The Peter Lim case is similar but he was convicted.</p>
<p>golfer: sometimes, it’s legal to give something but not get something, or vice-versa. It is not illegal for a foreign government to give items of high value to U.S. officials, but our Constitution prohibits them from taking it. So in reality, we aren’t going to declare war on a country that gives a diamond necklace to someone, but we would prosecute that someone for taking it.</p>
<p>Without touching off a huge controversy, most abortion laws prohibited a doctor from performing an abortion, but the woman seeking the procedure was exempt from any penalties. </p>
<p>I think the same basic principle is at play here: we are okay using the arm of the law to prohibit a government contractor from giving out a contract for reasons that are other than those allowed (e.g. in exchange for sexual favours) - he’s the one who is violating a fiduciary duty to his own job. The person giving the favours might be slimy and classness, but her actions aren’t the type of thing that we want to prohibit using the force of government.</p>
<p>@ariesathena: All the examples you gave either deal with legal technicalities (i.e. US vs. foreign law) or deal with power difference. Furthermore, oftentimes laws are designed so that the professional party has a higher standard than the non-professional party. In this case that would be the doctor. Also, my original question was about bar admission not legal guilt or innocence. The sex for grades student may not be a criminal but I wonder if the bar would view her actions as unethical enough to justify denial?</p>
<p>Note: The above mostly deals with the two other corruption cases I mention not so much the one involving the student. </p>
<p>I won’t go as far to say these women got off because of gender however people that know anything about Singapore knows that this is likely the reason.</p>
To the extent that it can be answered, it already HAD been answered. I will also point out that the U.S. has fifty-one different legal jurisdictions that all have their own C&F standards.</p>
<p>You then asked about the man in Singapore who received oral sex in exchange for government contracts from an equally powerful woman. </p>
<p>Without being too dense, can you PLEASE pinpoint exactly what you are asking? Are you asking about bar admissions in the U.S., or are you discussing public policy in Singapore? Please, be clear. And if it’s about the U.S., then enough about Singapore.</p>
<p>Im trying to understand if people in the U.S. find the sex for grades girl’s actions unethical and if she should face consequences? In Singapore women are oftentimes able to play the “blame the man” card much more successfully than here. I believe there is a cultural reason for the difference but I don’t want to write about it because its long and confusing. It’s similar to the one Malcolm Gladwell made about plane crashes and Korean culture.</p>
<p>Also, if a woman was a government official and received bribes would you be okay with only she being punished but not the giver?</p>
<p>In the US, it’s not about the sex of the participants, but their positions.</p>
<p>The way many university codes of conduct are written, if a student (male or female) had sex with a prof (male or female), only the prof would be punished. Thus, I kind of doubt that the student’s involvement would have to be disclosed on a bar application. Of course, that depends on the actual wording of the question, but it’s unlikely there will be any disciplinary record in the student’s file.</p>
<p>Yale struggled with a similar issue. A star in the Egyptology department had a long affair with a student. The affair began when the student was a Yale undergrad and continued while she was a grad student. She got a Ph.D. in record time and he supervised her thesis. She then became a Yale faculty member.The affair was an open and notorious “secret,” but it took years for anyone to make an official complaint.</p>
<p>He’s been disciplined. She doesn’t seem to have been. Many people familiar with the circumstances think she should have been.</p>
<p>golfer: I think I answered your question. In many situations, we are deeply squeamish about prosecuting one person, even if individual circumstances may justify it. Many Americans would find it unjust, for example, to prosecute a woman who brought a rape charge and whose alleged assailant was found not guilty; we would worry that prosecuting her would prevent victims from coming forward. (There are some women who have been prosecuted, but only in extreme situations and very rarely, at that.)</p>
<p>You can bleat all day long about how “this particular woman” was in a relatively equitable position of power, and how she “blamed the man,” but if we prosecute her, the 14-year-old girls who are sleeping with their high school Spanish teachers are going to worry that they will be prosecuted and aren’t going to bring complaints. </p>
<p>It’s not a “blame the man” thing (and I resent the implied sexism). It’s a lot more subtle than that and deals with unintended, but perfectly expected, consequences.</p>
In that situation, there are a few things that you could do to the man:
Charge him with sexual harassment in a civil suit;
Charge him with sexual assault in a criminal suit;
Charge him with receiving sexual bribes in a (presumably criminal) suit.</p>
<p>The latter might be the easiest to prove: you don’t need to show that the woman found the sexual encounter to be unwanted or coerced. Ergo, charge the guy with receiving sexual bribes (i.e. did he receive sexual favours and use it to influence his grading policy?). But that doesn’t mean that you’re going to charge her with giving those bribes.</p>
<p>And yes, I stand by the fact that sometimes, we allow someone to offer a bribe (or a gift) but do not allow the recipient to take it. That is how our law works.</p>
<p>Your original question was whether or not the girl WOULD face consequences. Now we see that you are really wanting to know if she SHOULD face consequences, which is a judgment question rather than a question of current policy.</p>