The Board of Regents of the University of California took a positive step forward last week when it instituted a ban on faculty members dating or having any sexual relationships with students they teach or are likely to teach.

Until this action UC, like many colleges throughout the United States, had no systemwide ban of such relationships.

However, six of the UC campuses, including UC-Berkeley, had conflict-of-interest guidelines that urged professors to withdraw from overseeing students with whom they had been romantically involved.

The regents had been working on a stricter policy since 2001, but the effort gained momentum last year when the dean of Boalt Hall law school was forced to resign after an allegation of sexual harassment filed by a former law student.

The woman claimed that Dean John Dwyer had fondled her after a night of heavy drinking. Dwyer acknowledged an encounter but claimed it was consensual.

In any case, the charges and subsequent resignation rocked the entire UC system and, once it became public, the resolve to establish a new policy became much greater.

Some of the advocates for a new policy had pressed for one that offered a total ban on student-faculty dating, which we frankly don't think is unreasonable and is certainly the best way to avoid future complications with students and faculty.

But the compromise policy agreed upon says it is unacceptable for professors to enter into a romantic or sexual relationship with a student for whom they have "or should reasonably expect to have in the future" a teaching, evaluative or supervisory responsibility.

That would include students whose area of study would require them to take a course from a particular professor as well as students known "to have an interest" in the subject matter taught by the professor.

Perhaps as importantly, the new policy also requires professors to recuse themselves from academic responsibility for students with whom the professors have an existing relationship. Two regents opposed the new policy saying that it was too broad and far too difficult to enforce.

We don't agree. This policy seems straightforward and we believe that the university can and, indeed, must enforce it for the protection of the students, the professors and for the integrity of the institution as a whole.

We applaud the regents for tackling a difficult issue and fashioning a reasonable, workable policy.