For years, there has been an unsettling trend of teacher-student relationships on the rise. I am not going to go into why this baffling trend is occurring. However, one of the most recent headlines that caught my eye was one that occurred less than a mile away from my home in Joliet.

Ashley M. Blumenshine, 27, was charged with criminal sexual abuse after police found her and a Plainfield North student in some compromising positions on Jan. 4 in a vehicle behind a Kohl’s department store (very classy) in Plainfield, The Chicago Sun-Times reported.

A criminal sexual abuse charge is a felony punishable by three to seven years in prison.

Blumenshine, who is an Eastern graduate, taught at my former high school, Plainfield South High School, before moving on to other schools in District 202.

What concerns me, other than the safety of those who cannot even buy a lottery ticket, is whether the courts will bring down the Hammer of Thor on Blumenshine.

Although she has not yet been convicted of the crime, if she is found guilty I hope the penalty will not be watered down because she is a woman. She broke the law – it is as simple as that.

However, there is an undeniable double standard when it comes to convicting women for sexual assault.

One of the more famous cases of double-standard criticism occurred in 1999 when 43-year-old New Jersey teacher Pamela Diehl-Moore admitted to sexually assaulting a 13-year-old student, The New York Times reported.

Outrage poured out when New Jersey Superior Court Judge Bruce A. Gaeta sentenced the teacher to a mere five-year-probation sentence for the crime.

“I really don’t see the harm that was done here,” he said, according to court transcripts.

This woman assaulted a 13-year old. If that’s not considered “harm” I don’t know what is.

Thankfully, in 2002, a New Jersey appeals court threw out the sentence and sentenced Diehl-Moore to three years in prison.

However, the female teacher’s punishment is not truly fair when you consider males who are convicted of the same crime.

In 2009, Michael Ingersoll, then a 30-year-old social studies teacher in Santa Fe, was sentenced to five years in prison for having sex with a 16-year-old student at his home in 2008.

Some psychologists may argue that defendants should be persecuted differently because the genders evolve sexually at different paces.

However, my argument is that a minor is a minor and defendants should be prosecuted accordingly, regardless of gender.

Shelley Holmgren is a senior journalism major. She can be reached at 581-7942 or at DENopinions@gmail.com.