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by hn_throwaway_99
2473 days ago
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There is a huge difference with what Harvard did and what MIT's Media Lab did. According to the article, Harvard didn't take any money from Epstein after his conviction, while at the Media Lab they continued to take it even after MIT put Epstein on its donor blacklist, and tried to hide the source of the funds. |
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Turns out this was a misrepresentation:
* https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614299/mit-media-lab-jeff...
Apparently "disqualified" status was a flag in their CRM essentially just meant "don't bother trying to cold call this person", usually set after three failed attempts to fund-raise from them. It in no way signaled any kind of prohibition on fundraising, and only available to development staff in any case. The whole tangent was essentially spurious and signified nothing except that his donations weren't coming in through fundraising cold calls.
But the real shocker is:
* https://president.mit.edu/speeches-writing/preliminary-fact-...
Media Lab's acceptance of donations from Epstein was known and approved by senior staff in MIT administration, the president even sent a thank you letter. The Media Lab had been directed by the administration to keep Epstein's donation's anonymous to avoid him using MIT for publicity or to enhance his own reputation.
So this whole idea that Ito was demonstrating mens rea by concealing his actions from the administration appears to be completely false. I find it shocking that MIT took a week to clarify this point.
Kinda sad that HN has had three front page stories repeating this allegation that Ito hid the donations from MIT, but a submission of the link to MIT's statement that the administration knew and directed keeping them anonymous is totally buried. I could understand being burned out on the subject, but now we have this Harvard thing at the top...