Richard Stallman, a computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has resigned from the prestigious university following controversial comments that the alleged victims of an associate of sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein were “entirely willing” when they had sex with him.
The story: Stallman revealed his decision in an email published online Monday. “I am resigning effective immediately from my position in CSAIL at MIT,” he wrote in the email, as reported by Fox News. “I am doing this due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations.”
Stallman has also resigned as president of Free Software Foundation which he founded in 1985.
In an email thread leaked last week, Stallman suggested MIT AI laboratory co-founder Marvin Minsky, who died in 2016 and was accused of assaulting Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s victims, had not assaulted anyone and discussed the meaning of “sexual assault” and “rape” and whether it applied to Minsky and his alleged victim.
“The word ‘assaulting’ presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex,” Stallman wrote, referring to an article about Giuffre’s testimony against Minsky. “The most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing.”
MIT alum Selam Jie Gano, who leaked the email thread to Vice, said Stallman was responding to a female student’s email about an MIT protest about Epstein’s donations to the university. The student said that Giuffre, who was 17 at the time, was forced to have intercourse with Minsky at Epstein’s home in the Virgin Islands, to which Stallman replied, “it is morally absurd to define ‘rape’ in a way that depends on minor details such as which country it was in or whether the victim was 18 years old or 17.”
MIT came under scrutiny after it was reported that it continued receiving Epstein’s donations despite listing him as a “disqualified donor.”
According to The New Yorker, Epstein, who committed suicide last month, had donated at least $7.5 million to the elite university over the years.
