There's no shortage of reasons to criticize at MIT but I'm not sure Epstein is one of them.
AFAICT the administration did not turn a blind eye to Epstein, and in fact barred him. And the scandal is that Joi knew that he was persona non grata and therefore took steps to hide Epstein's funding. That is unquestionably terrible but in my mind doesn't tar the Institute.
I'm certainly not defending (or criticizing) MIT as an institute (there are bigger problems than the dreadful press releases from the publicity office). But if my understanding is correct, Epstein, while lurid, might not be a useful line of attack.
Well sure, but the point is the institution put a stop mechanism in place, when it was found out that someone had worked around it then a group of them were canned too. The media lab is a tiny part of the smallest school in a very large institution and the sums were correspondingly trivial compared to the institute's annual budget. (even all of education is a small fraction of that budget).
It's as if Google's parking valets were found to be running a car theft ring (made up example): unless Google seemed to think it below their notice, I would have a hard time considering that should be grounds for condemning Google.
I'm not defending MIT (or conflating car theft with sexual abuse) I'm merely saying that if you want to attack MIT consider something more substantive like its slow progress in recruiting and retaining female scientists; it's intimate ties with the government and military (despite various fig leaves assembled over the decades), or its treatment of undergraduates which at best is neglect. Don't waste your efforts on a small, if noisy, lab that has produced negligible research of consequence.
AFAICT the administration did not turn a blind eye to Epstein, and in fact barred him. And the scandal is that Joi knew that he was persona non grata and therefore took steps to hide Epstein's funding. That is unquestionably terrible but in my mind doesn't tar the Institute.
I'm certainly not defending (or criticizing) MIT as an institute (there are bigger problems than the dreadful press releases from the publicity office). But if my understanding is correct, Epstein, while lurid, might not be a useful line of attack.