If you generalize a bit it all makes perfect sense. >30+ years of <pretending to actually be doing useful things>, high-profile failures, and maybe one or two

If you generalize a bit it all makes perfect sense. >30+ years of <pretending to actually be doing useful things>, high-profile failures, and maybe one or two useful <things> among the years of pointless impractical <wastes of time and money> "looks cool", all funded by <shady people of at best questionable morals>. The above generalized form describes basically every "esteemed" public and quasi-public-nonprofit institution (higher education falling in the latter category here) in the greater Boston area (I'm sure there's a short list of exceptions but I can't think of any right now). This is a culture problem, not a problem with a particular institution. Look at history. Cultural problems do not go away overnight and they certainly do not go away just by swapping out what's basically a department head. You have to slowly build the expectation that people will not do whatever the problem thing is. Unfortunately, the people of MA mostly just expect that the upper class (social class in this context) is a (ethically) dirty bunch and scandals like this are met with a shrug and a fatalistic "well what are you gonna do" by the general population. People in places of power doing highly unethical things (like accepting Epstein's money) is simply not a problem that society in MA cares much about or even feels it can solve (at present). FYI I'm only speaking for the greater Boston area because that's what I know. I have no idea how they do things in Chicago or Moscow (but I like to think I could take a good guess).