MIT Media Lab Director Joi Ito resigns amid Jeffrey Epstein scandal

[blogslut]

Source: CNET

The director of the MIT Media Lab, Joi Ito, resigned Saturday amid a scandal over the Media Lab's ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Ito's resignation follows a Friday night report in The New Yorker that said the Media Lab had a deeper funding relationship with Epstein than it had previously acknowledged and worked to disguise its contacts with the disgraced financier.

"Because the accusations in the story are extremely serious, they demand an immediate, thorough and independent investigation," MIT President L. Rafael Reif said Saturday in a letter to the MIT community. "This morning, I asked MIT's General Counsel to engage a prominent law firm to design and conduct this process. I expect the firm to conduct this review as swiftly as possible, and to report back to me and to the Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation, MIT's governing board."

Reif said Ito had submitted his resignation as director on Saturday afternoon and that Ito had also stepped down as a professor and employee of MIT. When asked to comment on the New Yorker article and Ito's resignation, a representative of the Media Lab pointed to Reif's letter.

The New Yorker report says Epstein helped secure donations from parties including Microsoft founder Bill Gates and that the lab's cover-up effort was an open secret among staff, some of whom gave Epstein the nickname Voldemort or "he who must not be named."

Read more: https://www.cnet.com/news/mit-media-lab-director-joi-ito-resigns-amid-jeffrey-epstein-scandal/

[Boomer]

1. Good. n/t

[Loki Liesmith]

2. Media lab does great work

I hope they suffer no lasting damage.

[Grokenstein]

3. Let the careers hit the floor!

No matter who, no matter which, no matter what.

[Roy Rolling]

4. "What" does matter

MIT’s Media lab does some great work and the head has resigned. I hope an investigation will uncover the events that happened objectively and accurately.

We’ve seen what knee-jerk reactions gave us with Al Franken. Cleaning house at MIT in a premature crusade would lose some of the greatest geniuses in America. No, the world.

[Devil Child]

5. Apparently not smart enough to avoid Epstein's money

[JudyM]

7. Apparently he "seduced" more than girls.

[Roy Rolling]

8. Epstein was lucky

At least some of his money went to a good cause. Compare giving to the MIT Media Lab vs. buying a portrait of Bill Clinton in a dress...allegedly.

Taking the money and giving it back is justifiable. Covering it up internally is a firing offense.

There’s a war on education by the barefoot and pregnant wing of the Republican Party. They are spending money to dumb down America in schools and colleges. They would be overjoyed to see a world-class university like MIT be dragged through the mud justifiably or unjustifiably. They don’t care. So I support education, everyone should.

[triron]

6. Epstein was a genius too but he had some personal problems.

[YOHABLO]

9. I'm not sure about the ''genius'' part. "Personal problems" is an understatement.