Scientist and professor. Follow for science, health, and academic reform • dr.jason.locasale@gmail
Raleigh, NC
- Tweets 4,750
- Following 628
- Followers 16,511
- Likes 9,776
MIT thinks it can put on a show claiming to value merit to keep the DOJ and the White House off its back.
David Sabatini’s case exposes that smokescreen. Their true colors were on display throughout his ordeal. Scientific excellence was disposable when it conflicted with their political priorities. They have hollowed out the science while continuing to trade on the reputation it built. Their real priorities are far removed from the excellence they advertise.
Excellent article from @mrddmia.
foxnews.com/opinion/mike-dav…
3
446
Biomedical research may be the sector most deeply entangled in the DC swamp. Even a modest change brings out an army of lobbying groups, professional societies, and advocacy organizations mobilizing to preserve the status quo.
These organizations present themselves as the voice of science and patients, but they represent institutions and certain individual careers built around preserving the existing system. Their own interests should be scrutinized, and we should not take their claimed authority to speak for patients and scientists for granted.
This entrenched resistance makes biomedical research one of the hardest areas to reform. It is also a major reason we have not made more progress against cancer and chronic disease. The establishment treats its own arrangements as untouchable.
Professional societies, cancer advocacy groups urge NIH to withdraw proposed changes to peer-review process
cancerletter.com/cancer-poli…
7
11
51
3,619
Science pursues salacious headlines to advance its political agenda while using the credibility of the scientific research it publishes as cover. Confidential personnel gossip is another weapon in that campaign.
Science magazine claims to have sources leaking confidential personnel deliberations from inside the federal government.
It is turning internal personnel matters into gossip aimed at attacking RFK Jr., framing the selection process as infighting to further sow division and distrust in HHS and NIH.
One person they like gets the “physician-scientist” label. The other is reduced to insinuations that he is a quack. The framing is blatant.
Meanwhile, AAAS, the organization that publishes Science, benefits from tax-exempt status and public funding, including subscriptions and publication fees paid through publicly funded institutions and research budgets.
Exclusive: A physician-scientist recommended by NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya to lead the agency’s mental health institute is no longer in the running. Instead, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. favors a researcher who studies treating mental illness with diet. scim.ag/4smMCYF
2
6
54
4,003
An editor right out of a postdoc, making around $70K a year, can be handed enormous influence over the scientific system at a major journal.
A paper in a high-profile journal can help secure a $2M NIH R01 grant, obtain a $10M NIH center grant, or underpin a $50M venture raise. An editor selecting 50 papers a year and rejecting 500 makes hundreds of consequential decisions annually. Add the grants, investments, licensing deals, and appointments those publications support, and the financial influence can extend well beyond $1B.
The point is that massive cumulative financial influence is concentrated in these small editorial teams.
I wish you didn't veer into the $1B hyperbole (how many billion dollar bio startups are there, and how many based on a single paper).
It's a shame, because most of the post is accurate.
7
6
94
16,258
The congressman is right that technological progress is enabling unprecedented discoveries in biomedical science.
The problem with cancer and many other diseases is regulatory inertia, the related economics and costs of health care, entrenched interests protecting the status quo including the biomedical institutions prioritizing their narratives over the truth.
Even with extraordinary knowledge and technology at hand, we still lack an academic and health care system capable of getting cures to people. That will remain the bottleneck until major reforms occur. Scientific progress alone cannot overcome a system that cannot translate discoveries into accessible care.
I have stood beside hospital beds when medicine had nothing left to offer. I believe we are approaching a future where that changes forever.
We are going to cure cancer. And artificial intelligence will help us do it. The next great medical revolution is within reach, and America can and must lead it.
Read my latest op-ed in The Washington Times. ⬇️
washingtontimes.com/news/202…
1
1
8
1,467
This is commonplace. The narrative takes precedence, and a smear or rumor is enough to cause professional relationships to disintegrate. Truth is often of no relevance. A vague cloud surrounds the person that has no bearing on their actions or character.
How to destroy your departmental rival in 3 easy steps:
1. Make serious allegations. Evidence optional
2 Let rumour do the work while your rival’s reputation burns
3 Count on HR to swallow the story if you’re an institutional favourite
A major problem at many universities now
6
9
55
3,868
There is an allegation that a journal editor demanded a $300K bribe to publish a manuscript.
This editor used to work at Science and now is editor in chief of a top cancer journal.
There is no doubt a very shady business that surrounds academic publishing, sustained by rent seekers throughout the biomedical system. Institutions have attached enormous rewards to getting through a journal’s gate while paying far less attention to who controls that gate and how the decisions are made.
A major problem in academic research is how much judgment has been outsourced to journal names and the editors who control access to them.
Professional journal editors are former scientists who left research for a more straightforward job, often paying far less than a faculty position or a job in industry. Yet universities and scientific organizations have given these editors tremendous power over careers and the allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars.
As the biomedical system expanded and became more compartmentalized, there were too many scientists and laboratories for people evaluating them to assess everyone’s work themselves. The journal’s name became a substitute for judging the science. Where something was published determined what it was worth.
That judgment carries enormous financial consequences. Academic rank and stature depend on it. Venture capitalists use the journal’s name to reduce the perceived risk of investments. Pharma directs its attention toward those publications. Universities use them to select people for administrative positions, some carrying seven-figure salaries. Having your name on the right papers can open those doors even if the papers were completely wrong to begin with.
A Cancer Cell paper can be worth far more than $300K. An author can use it to raise many times that amount from investors and start a biotech company. The financial value attached to the publications a single editor decides to accept could approach a billion dollars while that editor makes $80K.
Meanwhile, almost no attention is paid to how qualified these individuals are to make such consequential scientific assessments, why they have been given so much authority, or why their compensation is so low relative to the financial interests surrounding their decisions. That disparity creates opportunities for impropriety.
However, this remains an allegation, and the editor is innocent until proven guilty.
11
14
97
9,870
Apparently, following the money becomes less appealing when the trail leads home.
This guy’s own family made millions inside the academic biomedical system whose funding arrangements he defends. His mother was a medical school dean at Cornell with a salary near or above seven figures and a lavishly compensated bureaucrat at a Harvard hospital. His father made millions working inside NIH. They were powerful, rich insiders in the establishment he now protects.
Now he likely stands to inherit a family fortune. The status quo he promotes made his family rich and could ultimately make him even richer. His outrage conveniently stops at his own doorstep.
He's trying to run, but Congress should not let him hide. Calley Means worked the laws from the inside to benefit his own company, making millions of dollars.
3
11
52
4,999
Quid pro quo is rampant in academic peer review and publishing.
But I would be shocked if it were as explicit as “pay me $300K and I’ll publish your paper.” Editors are generally not stupid enough to spell out an arrangement like that. Those working for publicly traded publishing companies like this guy know they would risk their jobs and criminal prosecution.
Where it gets murky is paid conference travel that looks like a luxury vacation, cozying up to editors, buying them meals and drinks, and socializing with them. Networks form, and getting into those networks can be key to getting grants and papers published. Editors have friends in those circles too. They notice who you know and who you are associated with.
At some journals, you build good relationships with the editors. At others, you never manage to crack the system. Over time, you learn what particular editors like, which subjects excite them, and how they want a story presented. You start shaping your work and its presentation around those preferences.
There is a game to play, and you learn how to play it. The influence rarely if ever needs to take the form of an explicit transaction. It becomes embedded in relationships, access, and reciprocal favors, until anticipating what pleases the gatekeepers starts shaping the science itself.
In the news from China and Peking University👇
Cell publisher investigates editor accused of soliciting bribes from China
Probe triggered by social media post in which prominent biologist singled out Chinese-born editor-in-chief of medical journal Cancer Cell
scmp.com/news/china/science/…
5
10
84
13,536
The larger issue is how workplace relationship policies this restrictive undermine the communities scientists need to do their work. Scientists spend their lives together in laboratories. Conversation, friendship, trust, and even love grow out of that shared commitment. Turning those connections into career-ending liabilities encourages distance and suspicion. Teams become less connected, scientists become more guarded, and productivity and innovation suffer.
The absurdity is that the people making and enforcing these rules built their own lives and careers while engaging in the very kinds of relationships they now invoke to justify destroying someone else’s work. They benefited from a human scientific community, then turned its ordinary relationships into weapons against others.
The unanimous jury verdict established that David suffered professional losses because of Knouse’s unlawful conduct. The “but for” legal standard is the key to understanding the verdict. He would not have suffered those losses but for her conduct. This means any other reason offered for that damage including a lack of disclosure was proven not to be the cause.
Their relationship began before Whitehead changed its policy. Knouse ran her own group, separate from his. They posted photographs of themselves together on social media. You could even argue that those photographs were themselves a form of disclosure.
Whether he failed to formally disclose a relationship they preferred to keep private does not turn the destruction of his career into an inevitable consequence of a paperwork issue. MIT et al. cannot use that argument to erase the causal role of Knouse’s conduct. It’s like saying they had to execute the guy because he was going 56 in a 55.
Looked up the Whitehead policy; it’s crazy restrictive. Originally it matched MIT’s. Aug 2018 amended, taking unusually aggressive stand against workplace romance. New rule explicitly banned faculty, sr managers & PIs from sexual relationships w/any Whitehead employee—even peers
7
8
69
5,044
David’s life’s work was a disposable prop for MIT to market its virtue to a woke audience.
Some are even arguing that David deserved to lose his career because he was romantically involved with a woman in the workplace. That is an absurd and hypocritical justification for what MIT did to him.
Reducing the destruction of his career to a workplace relationship policy violation is grotesque hypocrisy. A romantic relationship at work is an ordinary part of academic life for administrators and an excuse for destroying a laboratory when it involves someone they don’t like.
His relationship with Knouse even began before Whitehead updated its relationship policies in August 2018.
If a workplace relationship warrants professional destruction, MIT and all universities, for that matter, have a great deal of firing to do. Erin O’Shea, who was instrumental in firing David from HHMI, dated and married someone who earned his PhD in her own laboratory. Ruth Lehmann, who forced David out of Whitehead, has a long-time partner who was a fellow scientist at NYU, where she worked. MIT’s president, Sally Kornbluth, is married to an MIT biology professor. These administrators know perfectly well that scientists form romantic relationships within their professional communities.
Scientists spend enormous portions of their lives in their laboratories and around other scientists. They develop relationships within that world because they devote themselves to their craft and have little social life outside it. Universities know this, and so do their administrators.
The court also rejected Knouse’s claim that she experienced quid pro quo sexual harassment from David. The court found that David did not condition professional benefits or consequences based on sex. She directed her own lab and she went on to obtain a tenure-track position at MIT. Invoking a poorly defined “power imbalance” does not erase the court’s rejection of her claim.
people.com/mit-scientist-dav…
9
37
356
65,079
Science magazine’s account is riddled with inaccurate and misleading reporting.
Start with the verdict.
The jury awarded David $500,000 for defamation, $3.2M for interference with contractual relationships in a category explicitly naming MIT et al., and $2.3M for interference with prospective professional relationships. It rejected Knouse’s claims of sexual harassment, hostile workplace and educational environments, and retaliation.
These are findings in a court of law, not competing opinions to balance against the losing side’s disappointment.
Of the $6M awarded, $5.5M concerned interference with David’s professional relationships. Science obscures the connection to MIT et al. and the administrators whose actions inflicted those losses.
Causation was central to what David had to prove. In “but for” legalistic terminology, the losses would not have occurred without the conduct at issue. If David would have suffered the same losses anyway because of a culture survey, an investigation, or anything else independent of Knouse’s conduct, those losses could not be attributed to her interference or her words. Science never examines that implication. MIT et al.’s actions on based Knouse's behavior were how allegations became lost employment, a lost laboratory, and a lost career.
Yet Science tells readers the verdict “has no direct impact on the conclusions of Whitehead’s probe.” That framing ignores the causal connection established by the interference and defamation findings and treats the institutional investigation as insulated from the verdict.
Science also returns to allegations of a sexualized or “toxic” environment as something David merely denies. Knouse sued him over those allegations. The verdict form explicitly asks whether she proved a sexually hostile workplace or educational environment. The jury answered no to both.
Recycling those allegations while giving the losing attorney space to attack the jury’s competence protects the institutional narrative from scrutiny. Allegations retain their authority. The verdict becomes an inconvenient opinion.
MIT et al. exercised the power that destroyed David’s career. Science should scrutinize their actions with the same aggression it directed at him. Institutional prestige is not evidence, and “independent investigation” is not a magic phrase that makes the verdict disappear.
A Massachusetts jury has awarded biologist David Sabatini $6 million—plus interest—in damages in his defamation case against Kristin Knouse, a former colleague at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.
The physician-scientist’s claims led one research institution to fire Sabatini and precipitated his resignations from Whitehead and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a tenured faculty member.
Read more: scim.ag/4jxig3b
ALT Biologist David Sabatini wins $6 million in defamation lawsuit A jury ruled in favor of the former Whitehead Institute scientist, dismissing accuser’s claims of sexual harassment and retaliation
17
70
658
52,528
There is no better learning experience than being forsaken by the vast majority of people you knew professionally. After spending so many years within that circle, you finally see what it is really about. You learn what matters and what is disposable. Much of what once consumed your attention turns out to be irrelevant. Perhaps a few relationships inside prove worthwhile. Sometimes none do. But lights emerge where you had never seen them before, and you remember who stood by you.
You learn not to care so much about the minutiae of a world whose people were so quick to throw you in the trash. Their approval loses its importance. Whatever rat race they are still running no longer seems worth so much of your time. What once seemed indispensable turns out to be something you can live without, because you have lived through its absence.
You also begin to see perspectives from outside that circle that you excluded or ruled out while working within it. You appreciate views you would not have given the time of day before. You see more clearly what is actually important to your life. There is a great deal to learn when a world you devoted yourself to decides it can do without you—including how much of that world everyone else can do without.
It is incredibly devastating to the psyche when the cancel mob comes for you
In your darkest hour, the true heroes and villains in your life will emerge with clarity. The villains will outnumber the heroes, overwhelmingly, and you will despair.
At times you will feel as though that knowledge was purchased by the loss of illusions that you’d rather have kept, but in time, those departures reveal themselves as a kind of necessary clearing. You can rebuild a new life and it may not be as glamorous, but it will be pure of heart.
4
11
99
4,054
The broader conclusion is that MIT and its administrators were not truthful about their actions and cannot distance themselves from the unlawful conduct that caused the damage.
The tortious interference claims, proven through a unanimous verdict from a majority-female jury, make this even clearer. The jury awarded the majority of the damages on those claims, finding that Knouse unlawfully interfered with David Sabatini’s employment and prospective jobs. This further established a causal connection between her conduct and the destruction of his livelihood.
The implication is that Knouse’s conduct drove the loss of his lab, his job, and future opportunities, rather than those losses occurring for unrelated reasons arising from a so-called "independent” and opaque investigation or MIT’s purported findings about his lab environment. That is the basis for calling MIT’s public explanation dishonest.
It is a repudiation of the dirty tactics universities use to take out faculty they don’t like while claiming to be fair and objective. This should prompt a further reckoning with the lack of trustworthiness in our academic institutions.
MIT claimed that its actions against David were based on findings about the culture in his lab. The $6M verdict invalidates that explanation.
The jury awarded David $6M for damages caused by Knouse’s defamation. This means not only that false statements were made, but that those statements were proven to have caused a huge amount of damage. A causal connection between Knouse’s statements and the harm David suffered was established in court. The damage he endured came from the actions of MIT, Whitehead, and HHMI and their authority over him.
The implication of the court ruling is that those actions occurred because of the false statements, rather than for other reasons such as a vaguely defined lab culture.
A “toxic work environment” is a vague, slippery, often unfalsifiable slur that can be attached to anyone directing a laboratory or any group of people. Falling back on that label was a way to hide the real reasons for their actions from the public and look good to their base. Nobody likes an abusive boss, especially students who like to protest.
But I knew so many people who had worked under his supervision. They did not see him or his lab that way, even though they were not speaking publicly.
3
29
295
9,274
MIT claimed that its actions against David were based on findings about the culture in his lab. The $6M verdict invalidates that explanation.
The jury awarded David $6M for damages caused by Knouse’s defamation. This means not only that false statements were made, but that those statements were proven to have caused a huge amount of damage. A causal connection between Knouse’s statements and the harm David suffered was established in court. The damage he endured came from the actions of MIT, Whitehead, and HHMI and their authority over him.
The implication of the court ruling is that those actions occurred because of the false statements, rather than for other reasons such as a vaguely defined lab culture.
A “toxic work environment” is a vague, slippery, often unfalsifiable slur that can be attached to anyone directing a laboratory or any group of people. Falling back on that label was a way to hide the real reasons for their actions from the public and look good to their base. Nobody likes an abusive boss, especially students who like to protest.
But I knew so many people who had worked under his supervision. They did not see him or his lab that way, even though they were not speaking publicly.
Some are saying that because MIT and Whitehead were not held liable, they are exonerated from this mess. Nothing could be further from the truth.
These institutions have sophisticated, eight-figure legal operations and substantial resources devoted to shielding them from liability. They know how to word damaging public statements while protecting themselves against defamation claims. They also know how to invoke attorney-client privilege, work-product protection, and other privileges to shield their dirty business from public scrutiny. Their ability to defend themselves legally should not be confused with institutional integrity.
Faculty employment is generally at will. That means an employer can fire someone for any or no reason. Tenure is a policy, not a legal right. Faculty are sold the promise of its security, but finding out what protections they can actually enforce when push comes to shove can take years and enormous legal fees. Sally Kornbluth, now MIT’s president, even admitted in court once that tenure does not carry the legal protections faculty believe it does (Shaughnessy v. Duke, see her deposition excerpts in the summary judgment materials). Employment law provides no remedy for many destructive decisions universities make.
Civil rights laws offer protection against discrimination, and pursuing those claims is often the only recourse faculty have in court against a university. But proving discrimination is difficult, especially for a scientist with a unique position and record. David pointed to Knouse as someone treated differently. She also ran a laboratory and had NIH funding, but I think the court ruled they were not similarly situated. He did have a more senior rank and a larger lab. So be it.
But discrimination law only addresses discrimination. You can treat people like garbage and run your institution into the ground without committing actionable discrimination. This is where public accountability must come into play.
The jury found that Knouse defamed David and unlawfully interfered with his livelihood. MIT, Whitehead, and HHMI held the authority, and through their actions, the false allegations against him became career-destroying consequences. That is why this verdict demands accountability from those institutions. They bear responsibility for the damage those actions caused.
18
71
786
94,891
Jason Locasale retweeted
So true.
After you are abandoned by a trusted institution and publicly shamed, the headlines and mobs eventually fade. What you are left with is isolation.
People who claimed to be your friends abandon you. Very few will say anything positive about you. People generally pretend you are dead. Others dismiss or worse take credit for your work and try to write you out of history. Vultures swoop in from every direction.
This is what happens when fourth-rate administrators make decisions affecting people’s livelihoods without concern for what they are doing to their lives. These are scientists who were among the best in the world at what they did. They passed up careers in pharma, finance, tech and administration that could have paid them vastly more for their skills.
When I was younger, people in my programs who gave up on science early went on to make fortunes on Wall Street, in biotech, and in Silicon Valley. Those who stayed pursued their passion for the love of it at the cost of millions of dollars.
When an administrator steps in and dismantles that life’s work, far more than a job is erased. Laboratories take years to build, and scientific problems take years to develop and eventually solve. Experiments, research materials, collaborations, and accumulated expertise cannot simply be restarted somewhere else. The field keeps moving while your work is stopped. The time lost is also the time lost that could have been spent making money - that part a court will never be able to figure out because juries are ordinary people not dedicated scientists.
Then comes the gaslighting. People assume it must have been your fault because an institution like MIT or Duke is supposedly so trustworthy and meritorious that it would never do this to someone who was not guilty. Institutional prestige is a substitute for examining the evidence.
I recently attended a meeting on academic freedome at MIT where Dorian Abbot’s name kept coming up as their fallen hero. They cited a cancelled lecture of his at MIT as their rallying cray. It was treated as an institutional catastrophe. It was insane. David was an afterthought among people supposedly concerned about the climate at MIT and self-appointed to change the culture there.
They simply believed MIT’s PR messaging that they have always been focused on merit despite some small missteps like the canceling of a controversial lecture. I had to point out repeatedly that MIT is not the MIT they attended 30–50 years ago. The priorities reflected in its newer hires and leadership have moved far from the scientific excellence they associate with it.
25
34
660
114,950
After you are abandoned by a trusted institution and publicly shamed, the headlines and mobs eventually fade. What you are left with is isolation.
People who claimed to be your friends abandon you. Very few will say anything positive about you. People generally pretend you are dead. Others dismiss or worse take credit for your work and try to write you out of history. Vultures swoop in from every direction.
This is what happens when fourth-rate administrators make decisions affecting people’s livelihoods without concern for what they are doing to their lives. These are scientists who were among the best in the world at what they did. They passed up careers in pharma, finance, tech and administration that could have paid them vastly more for their skills.
When I was younger, people in my programs who gave up on science early went on to make fortunes on Wall Street, in biotech, and in Silicon Valley. Those who stayed pursued their passion for the love of it at the cost of millions of dollars.
When an administrator steps in and dismantles that life’s work, far more than a job is erased. Laboratories take years to build, and scientific problems take years to develop and eventually solve. Experiments, research materials, collaborations, and accumulated expertise cannot simply be restarted somewhere else. The field keeps moving while your work is stopped. The time lost is also the time lost that could have been spent making money - that part a court will never be able to figure out because juries are ordinary people not dedicated scientists.
Then comes the gaslighting. People assume it must have been your fault because an institution like MIT or Duke is supposedly so trustworthy and meritorious that it would never do this to someone who was not guilty. Institutional prestige is a substitute for examining the evidence.
I recently attended a meeting on academic freedome at MIT where Dorian Abbot’s name kept coming up as their fallen hero. They cited a cancelled lecture of his at MIT as their rallying cray. It was treated as an institutional catastrophe. It was insane. David was an afterthought among people supposedly concerned about the climate at MIT and self-appointed to change the culture there.
They simply believed MIT’s PR messaging that they have always been focused on merit despite some small missteps like the canceling of a controversial lecture. I had to point out repeatedly that MIT is not the MIT they attended 30–50 years ago. The priorities reflected in its newer hires and leadership have moved far from the scientific excellence they associate with it.
21
110
975
149,815
Some are saying that because MIT and Whitehead were not held liable, they are exonerated from this mess. Nothing could be further from the truth.
These institutions have sophisticated, eight-figure legal operations and substantial resources devoted to shielding them from liability. They know how to word damaging public statements while protecting themselves against defamation claims. They also know how to invoke attorney-client privilege, work-product protection, and other privileges to shield their dirty business from public scrutiny. Their ability to defend themselves legally should not be confused with institutional integrity.
Faculty employment is generally at will. That means an employer can fire someone for any or no reason. Tenure is a policy, not a legal right. Faculty are sold the promise of its security, but finding out what protections they can actually enforce when push comes to shove can take years and enormous legal fees. Sally Kornbluth, now MIT’s president, even admitted in court once that tenure does not carry the legal protections faculty believe it does (Shaughnessy v. Duke, see her deposition excerpts in the summary judgment materials). Employment law provides no remedy for many destructive decisions universities make.
Civil rights laws offer protection against discrimination, and pursuing those claims is often the only recourse faculty have in court against a university. But proving discrimination is difficult, especially for a scientist with a unique position and record. David pointed to Knouse as someone treated differently. She also ran a laboratory and had NIH funding, but I think the court ruled they were not similarly situated. He did have a more senior rank and a larger lab. So be it.
But discrimination law only addresses discrimination. You can treat people like garbage and run your institution into the ground without committing actionable discrimination. This is where public accountability must come into play.
The jury found that Knouse defamed David and unlawfully interfered with his livelihood. MIT, Whitehead, and HHMI held the authority, and through their actions, the false allegations against him became career-destroying consequences. That is why this verdict demands accountability from those institutions. They bear responsibility for the damage those actions caused.
Dear President Kornbluth and Chairman Gorenberg,
Yesterday, as I am sure you are aware, a Boston jury unanimously found that @MIT professor Kristin Knouse defamed David Sabatini, falsely accused him of rape and sexual harassment, and tortuously interfered with his contractual arrangements including his tenure at MIT.
MIT and its tenure review committee relied on Professor Knouse’s statements when it took away David’s tenure and terminated him.
MIT's policies explicitly prohibit harassment, retaliation, and fabrication of claims. Falsely accusing a colleague of rape and sexual harassment and pushing for his termination under false pretenses are clearly violations of MIT policy.
In light of the unanimous findings of the jury after five years of discovery, many legal motions and countermotions by both parties, and a three-week trial in Suffolk County Superior Court in Boston:
Is MIT going to take away Knouse’s tenure and terminate her?
If not, why not?
Is MIT going to restore David’s tenure, and apologize for firing him?
If not, why not?
In light of what has transpired in this grave miscarriage of justice, MIT has the opportunity and the obligation to right a serious wrong here.
At a minimum, the public deserves transparency into what actions MIT is taking in this case as taxpayers are major funders of MIT.
Sincerely,
Bill Ackman
12
56
584
116,992
I generally reserve singling people out for university and hospital administrators collecting large salaries while greasing the system.
But it is entirely reasonable to examine her record and the hiring standards MIT used. We need to look at the standards adopted and what those standards are producing across academia.
In the 2010s, universities increasingly emphasized DEI in faculty recruitment. MIT sets an example that institutions across the country aspire to follow, including places like Duke and Cornell.
Hiring rewarded alignment with institutional priorities while giving too little weight to tangible scientific accomplishments. Publication records that would previously have been considered insufficient appeared acceptable when candidates fit the institution’s preferred politics, activism, or demographic priorities.
By 2026, those hiring decisions are shaping the next generation of scientists. The consequences extend far beyond MIT, particularly in biology which already struggles with too much soft science in its discipline.
Is it OK for an MIT professor with own lab to publish 3 review articles in 5 years and no original research? Now that we know that @DMSabatini was innocent it may not be so inappropriate to ask. Would I hurt anyone's feelings? scholar.google.com/citations…
10
23
378
45,066
David was actually employed and fired by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute
HHMI’s investigator program was built around identifying the best scientists in the country and giving them the resources to thrive. They became HHMI employees, receiving salaries and substantial research funding, including payment for their lab space, while keeping their university appointments and access to students.
David was identified as one of those talents. By the late 2010s, HHMI had become far more interested in identity politics than the merit that had given the program its standing for decades.
Following MIT/Whitehead’s metoo investigation, HHMI fired him.
The jury’s findings raise serious questions about the integrity of HHMI, a non profit organization that gets enormous tax benefits, including what it is actually funding, and the people it chooses to select, retain, or dismiss.
A civil jury ruled in favor of ex-MIT scientist David Sabatini, who was accused by a younger colleague of inappropriate sexual conduct in his Cambridge research lab, and awarded him $6 million in damages. trib.al/s3v9VIX
11
29
352
22,181