3 ms·

If you read the article, you'll find out that the coworker was not a member of his lab. She was actually the head of a completely different lab.

gamblor956 4y ago
This was not an article, it was a blog post retelling events entirely from Sabatini's perspective. EDIT: massive edits. For starters, it names the alleged victim of sexual harassment, which journalism organizations do not do in the U.S. And then gets personal about her sex life, including allegations of promiscuous sex. And then claims that she was actually sexually harassing him. (Yeah, sure. A twenty-something with multiple partners is sexually harassing her fat 50-year-old boss for...reasons. Uh huh. And Elvis is still alive in Las Vegas selling condos.) And this "article" actually gets a lot of things very wrong, which I didn't realize until I read other reporting: the alleged victim of the sexual harassment was not "the head of her own lab" as this article claims, but was a fellow (i.e., the lowest paid position) at the institution and left the fellowship early due to the alleged harassment. And the relationship actually started before she was a fellow/coworker; it began while she was a student applying to the fellowship and he was in a position to have input over her getting the fellowship. Also, this "article" fails to reveal that the woman was not at Whitehead at the time of the investigation and did not initiate the investigation. Other sources note that the investigation was actually prompted by the new director initiating an institute-wide survey on sexual harassment which uncovered multiple allegations against Sabatini by multiple women. The woman named in this "article" was merely interviewed as part of that investigation. And here's the kicker: this article conveniently leaves out that multiple subordinates reported being threatened by Sabatini not to participate in the investigation. All in all, Sabatini may be a genius, but he's also a disgusting pig, and the investigation found multiple things for which he could have been terminated, and there's a reason 3 separate organizations terminated him and his own companies chose to publicly dissociate themselves from him.
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  > the alleged victim of the sexual harassment was not "the head of her own lab" as this article claims, but was a fellow (i.e., the lowest paid position) She was a Whitehead Fellow, which is a prestigious award that lets the awardee set up their own independent lab.[0] That means she probably would have been hiring her own students, postdocs and lab technicians. This was hardly a low-level position. 0. https://wi.mit.edu/whitehead-fellows-program https://wi.mit.edu/whitehead-fellows-program
  - gamblor956 4y ago
    No, there is no "probably." Other, more complete and unbiased reporting makes it clear that she while she had lab space she was not in charge of her own lab at Whitehead, and she left after only a year due to her experience with Sabatini.
    - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
      > while she had lab space she was not in charge of her own lab I'm getting the feeling that you're just making this up as you go along. She had an independent lab at Whitehead. That's the entire point of the Whitehead Fellowship. It even says on her own lab's website that she established an independent lab at Whitehead. You can look at old versions of her lab's website and see that while she was at the Whitehead, she did indeed hire several people into her lab.
    - mlyle 4y ago
      > she was not in charge of her own lab at Whitehead From her own bio at MIT (which presumably she wrote herself) In 2018, she established her independent laboratory as a Whitehead Fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and was honored with the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award. > and she left after only a year due to her experience with Sabatini. To me, it looks like her tenure at Whitehead was 2018-2021, through the end of her fellowship. Then she became head of another MIT-affiliated lab. I do not think your comment reflects the truth of the matter.

gamblor956 4y ago

This was not an article, it was a blog post retelling events entirely from Sabatini's perspective. EDIT: massive edits. For starters, it names the alleged victim of sexual harassment, which journalism organizations do not do in the U.S. And then gets personal about her sex life, including allegations of promiscuous sex. And then claims that she was actually sexually harassing him. (Yeah, sure. A twenty-something with multiple partners is sexually harassing her fat 50-year-old boss for...reasons. Uh huh. And Elvis is still alive in Las Vegas selling condos.) And this "article" actually gets a lot of things very wrong, which I didn't realize until I read other reporting: the alleged victim of the sexual harassment was not "the head of her own lab" as this article claims, but was a fellow (i.e., the lowest paid position) at the institution and left the fellowship early due to the alleged harassment. And the relationship actually started before she was a fellow/coworker; it began while she was a student applying to the fellowship and he was in a position to have input over her getting the fellowship. Also, this "article" fails to reveal that the woman was not at Whitehead at the time of the investigation and did not initiate the investigation. Other sources note that the investigation was actually prompted by the new director initiating an institute-wide survey on sexual harassment which uncovered multiple allegations against Sabatini by multiple women. The woman named in this "article" was merely interviewed as part of that investigation. And here's the kicker: this article conveniently leaves out that multiple subordinates reported being threatened by Sabatini not to participate in the investigation. All in all, Sabatini may be a genius, but he's also a disgusting pig, and the investigation found multiple things for which he could have been terminated, and there's a reason 3 separate organizations terminated him and his own companies chose to publicly dissociate themselves from him.

DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
> the alleged victim of the sexual harassment was not "the head of her own lab" as this article claims, but was a fellow (i.e., the lowest paid position) She was a Whitehead Fellow, which is a prestigious award that lets the awardee set up their own independent lab.[0] That means she probably would have been hiring her own students, postdocs and lab technicians. This was hardly a low-level position. 0. https://wi.mit.edu/whitehead-fellows-program https://wi.mit.edu/whitehead-fellows-program
- gamblor956 4y ago
  No, there is no "probably." Other, more complete and unbiased reporting makes it clear that she while she had lab space she was not in charge of her own lab at Whitehead, and she left after only a year due to her experience with Sabatini.
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    > while she had lab space she was not in charge of her own lab I'm getting the feeling that you're just making this up as you go along. She had an independent lab at Whitehead. That's the entire point of the Whitehead Fellowship. It even says on her own lab's website that she established an independent lab at Whitehead. You can look at old versions of her lab's website and see that while she was at the Whitehead, she did indeed hire several people into her lab.
  - mlyle 4y ago
    > she was not in charge of her own lab at Whitehead From her own bio at MIT (which presumably she wrote herself) In 2018, she established her independent laboratory as a Whitehead Fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and was honored with the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award. > and she left after only a year due to her experience with Sabatini. To me, it looks like her tenure at Whitehead was 2018-2021, through the end of her fellowship. Then she became head of another MIT-affiliated lab. I do not think your comment reflects the truth of the matter.