$6M Verdict in #TheyLied Defamation Lawsuit Brought Over Sexual Harassment Allegations
· Reason
So reports the N.Y. Times (Mark Arsenault) yesterday, discussing former MIT cellular biology professor David Sabatini's victory on the defamation claim (and defendant's loss on her harassment and retaliation counterclaim). More details:
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[Sabatini] was forced out of his lab in 2021 after an internal Whitehead [Institute] investigation concluded he had a past sexual relationship with a younger and less experienced colleague, Kristin Knouse, over whom he had a career-influencing role. The investigation also found that his lab had maintained a sexualized atmosphere. Dr. Knouse said that the relationship was coerced.
But Dr. Sabatini denied his lab had an improper atmosphere. He maintained that his relationship with Dr. Knouse had been consensual and that Dr. Knouse had schemed to get him fired and disgraced after he became interested in another woman….
After he was pushed out of M.I.T. and the Whitehead, he had talks with New York University about a job. But N.Y.U. staff members and students protested in the streets against his hiring in 2022, and the university did not hire him.
In 2023, he was hired by the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, in Prague, and later opened a Boston-area branch of that institute….
According to the Boston Globe (Madyline Swearing, Bryan Hecht & Tonya Alanez), "In 2023, New York hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman and an anonymous donor pledged $25 million over five years to help Sabatini get back into science." The Globe also reports that the jury consisted of "seven women and six men," for whatever that's worth.
Here's an excerpt of what Sabatini alleged (quoting a Massachusetts appellate decision in the case, later reversed as to Knouse's counterclaim by the Massachusetts high court):
Sabatini and Knouse met in 2012. At the time, Sabatini was a tenured member of the department of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and ran his own laboratory at Whitehead, a research institute affiliated with MIT that receives funding from private resources such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and public resources such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH). {As pertinent here, Whitehead and HHMI have a relationship whereby HHMI provides funding for, and in some instances employs, individuals working at Whitehead. At all relevant times, both Whitehead and HHMI employed Sabatini. In addition, NIH provided grants that funded Sabatini's research at Whitehead.}
Knouse was enrolled in an inter-institutional M.D./Ph.D. program at Harvard and MIT, where Sabatini was one of her instructors and served on her thesis committee. While Knouse was a doctoral student, she and Sabatini sometimes socialized.
Then, in 2018, Knouse started a fellowship at Whitehead, and she and Sabatini began a sexual relationship. While the relationship ended in 2019, Knouse sent text messages to Sabatini in January 2020 seeking to rekindle their relationship. Sabatini responded, asking Knouse to stop and stating that he wanted peace and needed space to figure things out.
In early 2020 through the fall of 2020, Knouse began telling colleagues, both at Whitehead and MIT, that Sabatini had sexually harassed her. In October 2020, Knouse reported the alleged sexual harassment to Lehmann. Around that time, Whitehead hired a consultant to conduct a diversity survey at Whitehead. During the survey, some Whitehead employees reported concerns about Sabatini. In response, Whitehead hired the law firm of Hinckley, Allen & Snyder LLP (HAS) to investigate the culture within Sabatini's laboratory. The HAS investigators spoke with Knouse and other members of the Whitehead community. In interviews with the HAS investigators, Knouse repeated her allegations that Sabatini had sexually harassed her.
On August 13, 2021, HAS sent a report to Whitehead finding that Sabatini had committed sexual harassment. Whitehead forwarded the report to MIT and HHMI. On August 19, Whitehead provided Sabatini with a copy of the report. On August 20, Sabatini resigned after learning that Whitehead was about to terminate his employment. {Before Sabatini resigned, his coemployer at Whitehead, HHMI, terminated his employment. MIT placed Sabatini on leave.}
And here's what Knouse alleged (quoting the Massachusetts high court decision); the jury verdict suggests that the jury largely believed Sabatini's story rather than Knouse's:
Sabatini was a laboratory director at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research (Whitehead) and a tenured professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2012 when he met Knouse, then a graduate student at Harvard University and MIT. Sabatini was one of Knouse's instructors at MIT and served on her dissertation committee.
During a discussion in 2016 concerning whether Sabatini would endorse Knouse's application for an upcoming fellowship at Whitehead, Sabatini expressed concern that Knouse took herself too seriously and asked Knouse whether she ever had "fun," "fuck[ed] around," or had sex. Knouse responded that she did have fun and quickly left the conversation. Subsequently, Sabatini recommended Knouse for the fellowship and supported her grant application, both of which she secured.
Knouse joined Whitehead as a fellow in 2018. That year, Knouse and Sabatini began a sexual relationship that ended in 2019; thereafter, Sabatini continued to make sexualized comments to her. Knouse asserts that she struggled under this dynamic. Sabatini, whose laboratory was next to Knouse's, was the director of the Whitehead fellows program, and he served as a mentor and reviewer of her work. Knouse feared the potential consequences that losing an influential mentor would have on her career and believed she could not terminate the relationship without professional repercussions. She "began to withdraw from the scientific community" and "experience[d] debilitating feelings of entrapment and hopelessness."
Around this period, the results of a 2020 culture survey of Whitehead "suggested that Sabatini either personally engaged in sexually explicit and inappropriate discussions or fostered an environment that tolerated—or promoted—such inappropriate discussions and that he threatened those who might report his conduct." The survey results "amplified complaints" raised by two women, who had trained in Sabatini's laboratory, and by Knouse, who contemporaneously disclosed to the director that she had felt harassed during her fellowship but, fearing retaliation, did not provide any further details.
In response, Whitehead hired an independent legal team to investigate. The investigators determined, inter alia, that Sabatini had "engaged in and otherwise tolerated sexist and sexualized work discussions with his lab," and that engaging in such discussions "was an implicit part of succeeding in" Sabatini's laboratory. They also concluded that there was a "culture of fear and retaliation" within the laboratory. They reported that Sabatini had "engag[ed] in sexual relations with a Whitehead Fellow" and violated several Whitehead policies, including its sexual harassment policy.
Sabatini resigned from his Whitehead position. MIT announced that it was placing Sabatini on leave to perform its own investigation.
Sabatini's claims against Whitehead had earlier been dismissed (see, e.g., this decision).
Lisa Arrowood, Shayne Kinsella, and Sarah Sousa (Arrowood LLP) represent Sabatini.
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