
Letter regarding preliminary fact-finding about MIT and Jeffrey Epstein - Dangeranger
https://news.mit.edu/2019/letter-preliminary-facts-0912
======
azeotropic
So it looks like Ito wasn’t trying to deceive the administration about the
source of Epstein’s donations by marking them as anonymous (as the New Yorker
article implied), but rather he was marking them as anonymous because the
administration was aware of and accepted Epstein’s post-conviction patronage,
on the condition that it remained anonymous.

Do universities routinely do this (with money from Epstein, or other unsavory
individuals)?

~~~
fritzshizzle
More like, Joi did deceive the integrity of the institute for one by entering
such a deal.

For another there were at least 2 types of epstein donations made to him, one
of which was for “personal usage”.

Dude, before vindicating folks u gotta read the entire story plot.

~~~
azeotropic
Does “deceive the integrity” have some specific legal meaning wherever you’re
from? I can’t find any hits for the phrase in DDG. What are you trying to
argue?

I was not vindicating Ito of anything except the narrow charge (made in Ronan
Farrow’s New Yorker article) of attempting to hide the source of Epstein funds
from MIT by marking them as anonymous. It’s clear now from Reif’s letter that
this was actually done with MIT’s knowledge and at MIT’s request.

Both Ito and MIT decided to take Epstein’s money, knowing that he was a
convicted sex offender.

~~~
danielg6
I think “deceive the integrity” means that the administration wouldn’t have
been in the position in the first place to agree to anonymize the donation if
not for Ito’s actions.

~~~
azeotropic
Except Ito wasn’t the only faculty member taking money from Epstein, and the
Media lab wasn’t the only department. The thank-you letter to Epstein that
Reif signed was for money Epstein gave to support Seth Lloyd — a professor in
mechanical engineering and physics — and the earliest known money from Epstein
after his conviction. The ‘if not for Ito’ reading doesn’t make sense.

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thrwn_frthr_awy
Huh... So it seems Joi did take the fall for everyone after all. There was so
much being talked about this "blacklist" and Joi hiding the details from
others, but doesn't seem to be what happened at all. They all knew, and they
all talked about it.

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reifwithfraud
Folks should remember that Rafael Reif was the provost under Susan Hockfield
who orchestrated the whitewashing of research misconduct allegations that MIT
Professor Ted Postol launched against MIT Lincoln Laboratory for using
fabricated data to report results of a critical ballistic missile defense test
to the Pentagon. MIT was found "guiltless" by Provost Reif after an "internal
investigation" was conducted over the course of almost a decade. Steve Weiner
(a highly respected former director of ballistic defense research at Lincoln
for almost 20 years) has since accused MIT of engaging in a "kickback scheme"
whereby Lincoln would tell the MDA whatever it needed to hear about the
viability of a Starwars-inspired missile defense shield in order for
executives at Raytheon to receive multi-billion dollar contracts to build it.
The phony missile defense tests that Postol challenged intensely for almost a
decade were one small but critical piece of the massive fraud that MIT has
perpetrated against the United States taxpayer here. President Reif needs to
be incarcerated, not just fired!

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nkurz
This letter is darkly hilarious, in a way I can't believe is intentional. In
it, the president of MIT, who has previously disavowed knowledge of the
university's acceptance of gifts from the accused pedophile Jeffrey Epstein,
describes the progress report from a law firm contracted to determine who in
the administration might have had knowledge of these gifts:

"First, the Goodwin Procter team has found a copy of a standard acknowledgment
letter thanking Jeffrey Epstein for a gift to Seth Lloyd – as far as we know
now, the first gift received at MIT after Epstein’s conviction. I apparently
signed this letter on August 16, 2012, about six weeks into my presidency.
Although I do not recall it, it does bear my signature."

Just a standard letter thanking a convicted sex offender, but now that you
mention it, yes, it does seem to bear my signature. Moving on...

"Information shared with us last night also indicates that Epstein gifts were
discussed at at least one of MIT’s regular senior team meetings, and I was
present."

Yes, I suppose there was also a meeting (or possibly more than one) where the
appropriateness of accepting gifts from that same sex offender were discussed,
and now that you mention it, I suppose I was in attendance at at least one of
them. But who's counting!

The tone of the letter reminds me of the recent McSweeney's article that was
discussed here, in the form of a letter from management cheerfully explaining
why they will be moving from an open office plan to "a towering panopticon":
[https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/our-open-plan-office-
fai...](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/our-open-plan-office-failed-so-
were-moving-to-a-towering-panopticon)

Although I also get echoes of that wonderful Donald Barthelme story about
getting together to hang an old friend: "Some of us had been threatening our
friend Colby for a long time, because of the way that he had been behaving.
And now he'd gone too far, so we decided to hang him. Colby argued that just
because he had gone too far (he did not deny that he had gone too far) did not
mean that he should be subjected to hanging. Going too far, he said, was
something everybody did sometimes. We didn't pay much attention to this
argument. We asked him what sort of music he would like played at the
hanging."

[http://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/gone.too.far](http://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/gone.too.far)
(linking to the copyrighted story on an MIT site, because why not)

Bring the popcorn, the MIT-Epstein story looks like it's just getting started!

~~~
323454
I read it as President Reif trying to make this process completely
transparent, even when it doesn't reflect well on him. This is something we
need more of in our leaders, though I agree that it reads weirdly (partly
because it's so unusual).

I've actually met him personally a number of times and this letter concurs
with my assessment of him as being earnest and sincere to a fault. You can
generally take what he says at face value without needing to deconvolve layers
of Machiavellian intrigue. He's a caring and decent person and though he
clearly made a huge mistake here, I don't think he would have accepted the
money if he'd known more about Epstein. This is my opinion.

~~~
lonelappde
Transparency would mean not making repeated sidelong denials of each facts
that the investigation raised, trying to spin them down. No one cares whether
he "remembers" doing what he did, since it's absolutely trivial to lie about.
Better to remain quiet than to telegraph dishonesty.

~~~
prepend
It’s funny that the president thinks incompetence is better to display than
sex offender affinity (or whatever the flaw is). Signing letters without
understanding them is incompetent. Being mentally absent from staff meetings,
or presiding over meetings with inaccurate minutes, is incompetent.

I wonder if this means he thinks his risk of firing is less from being
incompetent in minor matters than from supporting sex offenders.

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jiqiren
So are they going to send the money back?

Will they send the money 'back' to some charity or group that works to help
victims?

Or just more cheap sorries but-thanks-for-the-expensive-equipment?

quick edit: MIT's endowment is worth over $16billion, they can afford to say
no. [https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-endowment-
financials-0914](https://news.mit.edu/2018/mit-endowment-financials-0914)

~~~
woofie11
Well, no. They can't afford to say no.

(1) Saying no to Epstein isn't a big deal. Saying no to everyone LIKE Epstein
is a very different story. This is just the one time they got caught.

(2) Endowment is only $16 million per professor. See: Growing faculty
compensation. Growing expectation that EVERYONE's a millionaire.

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foobar_
Going by that reasoning ... all donations from Christians, Muslims need to be
avoided. Both explicitly support the crucifixion of heathens while Muslims
actively support human trafficking of heathens. Funnily enough, both also have
a notion of charity.

What would be useful is to actually use the money for something useful.

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flockerdock
Lol . Biggest irony nobody points out . Professor title of Ito involved key
word “Ethics”. Isn’t that irony at its best ? How ethical is it to conduct
business deals with some counter party like Epstein ? How ethical is it to
conceal its name so that deal does get approved . Even more, how ethical is it
to keep receiving side pocket cash envelopes for startup funds and personal
travel and gadgets.

mit has to work on ethics a bit more.

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joewee
Interesting, this doesn’t get anywhere close to the 1000 upvotes and 800
comments the Joi resignation story did.

