The essence of grading someone’s work is the assumption of power, and power can be used fairly or unfairly. It may not be true that every man has his price, but many men do. Your school doesn’t want you to use the power you’ve been given to unfairly aid someone you date, to pressure someone to date you, or to take revenge on someone who turns you down. There’s a logic behind their rule. They know the other side of power is the corruption of power. A modern maxim states that corruption equals authority plus monopoly minus transparency. As a grader, what you do is largely out of public view. Only your integrity guarantees the process.

The university wants graders to avoid not only conflicts of interest but even the appearance of a conflict of interest. They want that because it guarantees everyone’s faith in the grading process. The only problem is application of their principle is a nightmare.

Can you grade the paper of a friend or a close friend? Your next-door neighbour? A second cousin? Can you grade someone you used to date? What about someone you have lingering hopes of dating? Then there’s the bias some women have in favour of all men, and the well-documented evidence that teachers give higher grades to people with better handwriting. Which, of course, means women.

In adopting this rule, the university has gained the appearance of virtue without actually being virtuous. If they wanted to avoid outside influences in grading, they should have implemented blind grading. But that is inconvenient and expensive. So they opted for ethics on the cheap.

We don’t believe their rule frees grading from bias, but it does have one advantage for you: It protects you from ‘B’ saying, “Danae pressured me for dates, and I finally had to say no (or yes) to her.”

You’ve already gotten the answer from ‘C’. Pressuring him further makes you look desperate. As for ‘B’, there is no question: You agreed to their rule.