Big Shot Professor Fired over Affair

The London Daily Mail reports:

'Genius' MIT scientist once touted as Nobel Prize winner is forced to collect unemployment after being fired over consensual open-relationship with younger colleague who said he'd abused her after he ended it

Dr. David Sabatini, 54, is collecting unemployment after being forced to step down from his position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
The tenured MIT professor was fired from The Whitehead institute in 2021
The woman, identified as Kristin Knouse by Common Sense substack, accused Sabatini of sexual misconduct and said she was coerced into having sex Sabatini sued the school and his accuser, arguing he was ousted over false sexual harassment claims concocted by a vengeful jilted lover

She was 30 years old, and had a year-long affair with him. Not an exclusive affair, as she was dating others. He had no management power over her.

This is what MeToo has become. Affairs between consenting adults can get one canceled.

Here is an open letter attacking him. It has nothing of substance, of course, and tried to blame him for "systemic issues that drive mental health consequences".

Meanwhile a philosopher says:

“From my limited anecdotal perspective, DEI workshops take white men who have unconscious anti-Black racial prejudice and turn them into full blown explicit racists,” Stanley said Friday on Twitter. “I hope that’s not happening at scale.”

“I believe in the goals of these workshops and I agree with many of their presuppositions about reality,” he continued. “But I am seriously worried about their effectiveness.”

Isn't that the idea? Everything these DIE folks do is to create racial division.

I listened to NPR Radio all day complain about Tucker Carlson being racially divisive. But he never says anything racially divisive. NPR broadcasts racial hatred to a 95% White audience every day.

The NY Times reports:

After Campus Uproar, Princeton Proposes to Fire Tenured Professor

In July 2020, as social justice protests roiled the nation, Joshua Katz, a Princeton classics professor, wrote in a small influential journal that some faculty proposals to combat racism at Princeton would foment “civil war on campus,” and denounced a student group, the Black Justice League, as “a small local terrorist organization” because of its tactics in pushing for institutional changes.

The remarks in Quillette made him a lightning rod in the campus free speech debate, reviled by some who thought what he said was racist, and lionized by others who defended his right to say it. And they sent up a flare that led to scrutiny of other aspects of his life, including his conduct with female students.

In the latest fallout from that debate, Princeton’s president has recommended dismissing Dr. Katz, according to a May 10 letter from the president to the chair of the trustees.

But the professor, who is tenured, is not facing dismissal for his speech. His job is at stake for what a university report says was his failure to be totally forthcoming about a sexual relationship with a student 15 years ago that he has already been punished for.

He is obviously being fired for expressing a completely reasonable opinion. Read the Quillette essay that the NY Times seems reluctant to link. Here is what infuriated the woke Blacks:

But then there are dozens of proposals that, if implemented, would lead to civil war on campus and erode even further public confidence in how elite institutions of higher education operate. Some examples: “Reward the invisible work done by faculty of color with course relief and summer salary” and “Faculty of color hired at the junior level should be guaranteed one additional semester of sabbatical” and “Provide additional human resources for the support of junior faculty of color.” ...

“Acknowledge, credit, and incentivize anti-racist student activism. Such acknowledgment should, at a minimum, take the form of reparative action, beginning with a formal public University apology to the members of the Black Justice League and their allies.” The Black Justice League, which was active on campus from 2014 until 2016, was a small local terrorist organization that made life miserable for the many (including the many black students) who did not agree with its members’ demands. Recently I watched an “Instagram Live” of one of its alumni leaders, who — emboldened by recent events and egged on by over 200 supporters who were baying for blood — presided over what was effectively a Struggle Session against one of his former classmates. It was one of the most evil things I have ever witnessed, and I do not say this lightly.

I do not agree with using the word "terrorist", unless they were doing something criminal. But a tenured professor certainly ought to be able to speak up against those on campus who are making life miserable for others.

It seems even worse that Princeton claims that they are firing him over an affair 15 years ago. His private sex life should be none of anyone's business. Liberals used to say that women were adults with rights to make their own decisions. Obviously his enemies were out to get him in order to advance their racist agenda.

Princeton asserted that Dr. Katz had discouraged the woman from seeking mental health treatment while they were together, for fear of disclosing their relationship; that he had pressured her not to cooperate with the investigation in 2018; and that he had hindered that investigation by not being totally honest and forthcoming, according to the report.

Maybe he honestly thought that she did not need mental health treatment, and that cooperating would not be helpful. No one is ever totally honest and forthcoming to those investigating him.

Update: His firing was formalized a couple of days later, according to the NY Times:

The board voted to dismiss him based on a “detailed written complaint from an alumna who had a consensual relationship with Dr. Katz while she was an undergraduate under his academic supervision,” according to a statement from the university issued Monday afternoon. That relationship was in 2006-07, but the alumna did not file her complaint until 2021.

She was asked to make a complaint in 2016, but refused. The whole idea of taking a complaint about a consensual affair 15 years later is absurd.