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Institutions don’t care about due process, former professor says
After being shunned by Massachusetts Institute of Technology and New York University, world-renowned cancer researcher David Sabatini won a $6 million defamation verdict on Friday against a former colleague who falsely accused him of sexual misconduct.
Sabatini resigned from his position as a tenured professor at MIT in August 2021 in the wake of complaints and an investigation over a consensual sexual relationship with a colleague, The College Fix previously reported.
He departed from MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, which he led for over 20 years.
Then, NYU announced it would not hire Sabatini after he was protested by students as a “serial sexual harasser.”
The MIT-based probe found Sabatini guilty of failing to disclose a consensual relationship with Kristin Knouse. It also concluded that the professor violated school policy by creating a “sexualized undercurrent in the lab.”
In response, Sabatini filed a defamation lawsuit against his former colleague and the Whitehead Institute. Court documents allege “claims for defamation, tortious interference with contractual, prospective, and advantageous relations,” the New York Post reported.
Sabatini’s legal team focused their arguments on the consensual nature of the relationship, citing text messages from Knouse.
“They also presented evidence they said showed that Knouse had become jealous of another woman in whom Sabatini was interested and had sought to have him fired,” the New York Post reported.
Sabatini said the ruling was “overwhelming,” according to Fox News Digital.
“It was done,” he said. “We had won everything, lost nothing. It was like a complete sweep.”
He added that he believes institutions are uninterested in due process.
“They care about having a certain conclusion. And for whatever reason that one could discuss, at that time the conclusion was, ‘Get this guy out of here and make an example of him,’” he said.
The former professor also said, “Everyone who came out and tried to defend me got attacked every which way.”
Meanwhile, Knouse’s attorney, Ellen Zuker, blamed the case’s outcome on misogyny in a statement to the New York Times.
“The sad reality of our time is that society still has a difficult time believing women and appreciating the difficulty they encounter with men who too often control their fate,” Zuker said.
Knouse’s legal team also said it plans to appeal the decision.
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