Epstein, MIT, and ‘sugar-daddy science’

The sordid tale of efforts at MIT to woo donations from Jeffrey Epstein but keep hush-hush the fact the school was welcoming money from the registered sex offender has put a spotlight on the world of high-dollar donors to universities and other nonprofit institutions.  

Following a New Yorker article earlier this month that exposed the role of MIT Media Lab director Joi Ito in funneling Epstein money to his operation while whitewashing the financier’s name from records, Ito promptly resigned.  (Writer Ronan Farrow reported that staff in Ito’s office referred to Epstein as Voldemort or “he who must not be named.”) 

Harvard is embroiled in the scandal as well, with Epstein giving the university $9 million prior to his 2008 conviction. When the Harvard Crimson sounded alarms last December about the Epstein donations in the wake of new reporting by the Miami Herald that Epstein for years ran a sex ring for underage girls out of his Florida manse, the university had nothing to say. 

Last week, Harvard president Lawrence Bacow, in a message to the university community, decried the revelations about Epstein’s behavior and said the episode “raises significant questions about how institutions like ours review and vet donors.” Bacow said he would convene a group “to review how we prevent these situations in the future.”

Globe columnist Shirley Leung wonders who at MIT should resign next, following the exit of Ito and this week’s resignation of a computer scientist who appeared to have minimized the issue of Epstein having sex with underage girls. It seems clear she has Reif in mind. Some calls for him to resign have already begun. 

For all the sickening details that seem to make the Epstein story an outlandish outlier, rich guys (and it usually is guys) paying their way to prominence through big donations for university research is a widespread practice. So much so that the phenomenon has earned its own name: “sugar-daddy science,” a term that takes on a dark double meaning in Epstein’s case. 

Agriculture scientist Sarah Taber, writing in The Atlantic, says sugar-daddy science has emerged as government funding, once the primary source of research dollars, has been pared back. “The system has fallen apart,” she writes, and private philanthropy has moved in to fill the breach. 

The problem isn’t just the money from shady donors like Epstein, whose identity universities want to hide, she says. It’s that rich benefactors tend to drive researchers toward buzz-worthy projects that are often a bust. She cites a recent effort at MIT’s Media Lab, reported on last week by Business Insider, to develop a “food computer” that would aid in growing “custom, local food.” It not only didn’t work, but researchers tried to hide that fact from its funders, says Taber.

“Research labs cultivate plutocrats and corporate givers who want to be associated with flashy projects,” she writes. “Science stops being a tool to achieve things people need—clean water, shelter, food, transit, communication—and becomes a fashion accessory. If the labs are sleek, the demos look cool, and they both reflect the image the donor wants, then mission accomplished. Nothing needs to actually work.” 

Another such example, she says, is the Media Lab’s “One Laptop Per Child” project, a “notorious failure.” 

Taber discloses that she was turned down for a job two years ago at the Media Lab, but her argument seems much more than just sour grapes. 

But there is an inherent conflict between universities’ insatiable appetite for donor dollars and drawing a line to separate those whose money an institution will take from those whose checks aren’t welcome.  

It makes things like the Epstein-MIT saga seem much more inevitable than incredible. 

MICHAEL JONAS

BEACON HILL

The Boston Herald continues to pound away at judicial patronage hires pushed by Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito. (Boston Herald)

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

Weeks after police raids in early August that resulted in 34 arrests, the problems of large number of homeless people and those with mental health and drug abuse problems on the streets of Boston’s South End have only gotten worse, say residents. (Boston Globe) 

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

Congresswoman Lori Trahan talked up Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s attributes in a meeting with the Lowell Sun, calling her ability to unite Democrats “masterful.”

ELECTIONS

Twice-indicted Mayor Jasiel Correia placed a distant second in yesterday’s preliminary city election in Fall River, giving him a spot on the November final election ballot, but positioned now as an underdog for reelection against first-place finisher Paul Coogan, a member of the city’s School Committee. (Boston Globe) Two co-conspirators charged in Correia’s latest indictment over marijuana licensing payoffs pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court, a potentially ominous sign for the young mayor. (Boston Herald) The Herald News has more key takeaways from the preliminary election. 

Other preliminary election results: Pittsfield City Councilor Melissa Mazzeo, followed by incumbent Mayor Linda Tyer, advance to the mayoral final in Pittsfield. (Berkshire Eagle) John Vieau, the City Council president, and Joseph Morissette, a police officer turned principal, advance in the race for Chicopee mayor. (MassLive) City Council Chairwoman Jennifer Kannan and Neil Perry are the finalists to succeed Methuen Mayor James Jajuga. (Eagle-Tribune)

Councilor-at-Large Robert Sullivan came in first in the race for mayor during the preliminary vote held in Brockton on Tuesday. Sullivan will appear on the final November 5 ballot alongside Jimmy Pereira, a second-time candidate for mayor.  (Brockton Enterprise) 

The Globe endorses incumbents Michelle Wu and Michael Flaherty and challengers Alejandra St. Guillen and David Halbert in next Tuesday’s preliminary at-large City Council election in Boston. 

Young climate activists will be a boon to Sen. Ed Markey’s reelection campaign, with 38-year-old Joe Kennedy not assured of a generational wave behind his would-be challenge to the 73-year-old incumbent. (Boston Globe)  

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Gloucester lobsters are caught in the US-China trade war. (State House News)

Chatham has joined Barnstable in restricting the sale of flavored tobacco products to businesses, meaning e-cigarettes and vaping devices won’t be available to those under 21 years of age. (Cape Cod Times)

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

As the medical community seeks to identify the particular causes of a vaping related lung illness, Massachusetts public health officials have identified 38 preliminary reports of cases that could be part of the same phenomenon. (WBUR)

Erica Walker, the founder and director of Boston University’s Community News Lab, is studying how city noise affects health, and hopes to come up with ways to make neighborhoods quieter. (WGBH)

ARTS/CULTURE

The Hub: An impressive, new front door to TD Garden and North Station that attempts to blend old and new Boston. (CommonWealth)

The Academy of Performing Arts school in Orleans has found new collaborations in the community after money troubles were aired last December. (Cape Cod Times) 

TRANSPORTATION 

The jarring headline on a Boston Herald editorial declares, “Time for feds to take over the T,” but what follows is a call for federal oversight of compliance with safety protocols in the wake of the June 11 Red Line derailment and other incidents. 

TransitMatters, at an event in Worcester, pushes for regional rail starting with the Worcester Line. (Telegram & Gazette)

Miles Howard takes a three-day, $84 tour of Massachusetts public transit, along with limited private carriers, from North Adams to Provincetown, and finds it lacking. (Boston Magazine)

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

A proposed electrical substation on city-owned land along the Chelsea Creek in East Boston is “nonsensical and outright dangerous” because it’s in a flood zone near people and millions of gallons of jet fuel, argue Roseann Bongiovanni and John Walkey. (WBUR)

The Daily Hampshire Gazette asks students why they are skipping school on Friday and traveling to Boston to participate in a rally demanding action on climate change.

Quincy city councilors voted to pay for the replacement of nearly 7,000 linear feet of crumbling sea wall that serves as the only barrier protecting Adams Shore homes from ever-encroaching seas. (Patriot Ledger) 

The Worcester City Council approves a ban on plastic bags at checkout. (Telegram & Gazette)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS

Trooper Corey Mackey is the new president of the State Police Association of Massachusetts, the third leader of the problem-plagued union in the last year. (Boston Globe) 

Hoeup Honn allegedly broke into an apartment, strangled a man who was there, used the man’s cell phone to text Honn’s ex-girlfriend, and then bound and raped her after she arrived at the place. (Lowell Sun)

A former Williams College student is sentenced to three years in prison for raping a fellow student in 2014. (Berkshire Eagle)

Douglas Steeves testified about his spotty memories of the day that he killed his estranged wife, which the defense contends was manslaughter committed in the heat of passion. (Salem News)

Veteran NPR and ABC News journalist Cokie Roberts died at age 75. (New York Times) “She never treated me nicely. But I would like to wish her family well,” said the ever-gracious President Trump. (Washington Post)