The Massachusetts Institute of Technology said Friday that it had placed one of its tenured professors on paid administrative leave after finding that he “purposefully failed to inform MIT” that convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was source of two donations in 2012 to support the professor’s research, and that the professor got a $60,000 personal gift from Epstein.
A scathing report released by MIT also found that the decision by three administrators to accept donations from Epstein, who pleaded guilty to sex crimes in Florida in 2008 — one of which involved a minor girl — “was the result of collective and serious errors in judgment that resulted in serious damage to the MIT community.”
The report noted that even as its findings have been made public, “MIT is still without a clear and comprehensive gift policy or a process to properly vet donors.” However, the university has begun to develop such a process.