Opinion: A view from inside MIT: The Epstein scandal is a teachable moment for colleges and universities
A month after Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide in a Manhattan jail cell, the number of people infected by his amorality and deceit remains unknown. The latest high-profile casualty is Joichi “Joi” Ito, the longtime head of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the university where I work as a professor and as the director of a graduate program in science journalism.
Instead of viewing this as an isolated incident, universities, colleges, and cultural institutions should use it as an impetus to take a difficult look at their own fundraising efforts. Refusing money from a convicted pedophile should be a no-brainer, but it’s time that the larger academic and scientific communities examine our willingness to accept money from donors whose actions directly oppose our values and missions, even if they’re not overtly criminal.
It’s worth using the still-unfolding Epstein-MIT scandal as a case study of a respected leader sullying his own reputation and damaging a revered institution for
