News that Derek Walcott has pulled out of the race to become professor of poetry at Oxford follows weeks of whispers about his unsuitability for the coveted post, because of sexual harassment complaints made by former students. The offences that the St Lucia-born poet stands accused of – including propositioning a female student with the immortal lines "imagine me making love to you. What would I do?" – were widely covered when they first came to light in 1982 and 1996, but had resurfaced in fairly theatrical fashion in the past few days, in the form of anonymous letters delivered to academics due to be voting on the appointment.

Walcott had been the bookies' favourite to get the job, ahead of Ruth Padel and the Indian poet Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, but has now withdrawn claiming that the contest had "degenerated into a low and degrading attempt at character assassination".

But should the somewhat unsavoury details of his alleged advances have disqualified him from the job?

Before Walcott's withdrawal, feminist author Hermione Lee, one of his most outspoken cheerleaders at Oxford, claimed that his unorthodox personal life should have nothing to do with it. Byron and Keats, she suggested, wouldn't have been censored for their actions, so "should students be forbidden to read Derek Walcott's poetry, lest they be contaminated by his long past behaviour?"

Elleke Boehmer, another high-profile Walcott supporter, elaborated: "There are other aspects to the character than the sexual. These kinds of concerns are raised when you prioritise character over poetry, and if it came down to absolutely blameless characters, then surely no one could stand."

Boehmer's point is a fair one. Both she and Lee have touched on age-old (and ultimately, one suspects, irresolvable) debates about artistic merit and human behaviour. How much can an artist use the defence of "artistic licence" when it comes to their actions? Should the excesses of "mad geniuses" be tolerated because of what they give to the world and their students? And if so, is Walcott's oeuvre of such value that he qualifies as one of these special few, or is it right that he bowed out? More specifically, how do we measure these things? Who in previous generations might have been given a hospital pass owing to their dazzling brilliance – Picasso, Pollock, Poe?

Fascinating though these questions may be, they are, unfortunately, of little relevance in this case. The fact is that one of Walcott's students complained she was given a C-grade because she spurned his advances, and was awarded a better grade on appeal. This points to his unsuitability as a professor, not an artist. The Byron analogy doesn't stand up at all: many parents would encourage their teenage daughters to read Byron's poetry, but would be less kindly disposed to him teaching their daughters about the mysteries of verse in person, particularly if he had defended himself in the farcical terms that Walcott did, claiming that his teaching style is "deliberately personal and intense."

But more importantly – and here Walcott's supporters would surely agree – the gossip was a distraction from what should really have been debated. Walcott may have been the poet of greater stature, but would he, or his closest competitor, Ruth Padel, have made the better professor of poetry? Might Padel be the better lecturer and, being less in demand, have more time and energy to devote to the job? It's an open question, but it's certainly the one I would care more about if I were casting a ballot. A shame, then, that voters no longer have the chance to decide.