MIT President L. Rafael Reif called for an independent investigation to look into the recent allegations against the university’s Media Lab and its ties to donations from Jeffrey Epstein, after a bombshell report published by the New Yorker. In a letter to the MIT community that was made public Saturday afternoon, Reif said he found the allegations in the New Yorker “deeply disturbing.”
“Because the accusations in the story are extremely serious, they demand an immediate, thorough, and independent investigation,” Reif wrote in the statement. “This morning, I asked MIT’s General Counsel to engage a prominent law firm to design and conduct this process.” Reif’s statement came after the Media Lab’s director Joi Ito resigned Saturday afternoon. According to the New Yorker, the Media Lab accepted more donations than what was previously disclosed to the public, including a $2 million donation from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates that was directed by Epstein. Epstein was being held on federal sex-trafficking charges before he died by suicide in August. Reif said that “the acceptance of the Epstein gifts involved a mistake of judgment.”
Read it at MIT
