The comments on the post (on the WK web site) are also very interesting.
Source: https://winteryknight.com/2022/07/18/famous-cancer-researcher-cannot-find-work-after-being-fired-for-consensual-office-romance/
I sometimes get into discussions with social conservatives about why I am not at least trying to get married. I have a lot of reasons for not trying to get married. First, I don't want to fall under the authority of hierarchies (school, work or church) who do not think that women should be held responsible for their own bad decisions. Let's take a look at a news story that illustrates the problem.
Once upon a time, men would meet their wives in school, workplaces or churches. As long as the man was not in the reporting hierarchy of the woman, (i.e. - as long as he was not her manager or her director, etc.), then it was fine for people to meet up, date, get engaged, and get married. But that's all changed now.
Consider this story from the New York Post:
A renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology biologist who was axed after having what he said was a consensual fling with a much younger colleague, said the mushrooming scandal forced him on the unemployment line.
David Sabatini, 54, whose research involved unraveling how tumors develop, resigned from MIT last month and has been surviving on employment after fellow scientist Kristin Knouse claimed he “groomed” and “coerced” her into a sexual relationship, according to a report and court papers.
A longtime friend and dean at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine tried to offer him a job, but after an uproar, the school announced on May 3 that it would not hire him despite the fact that colleagues described him in a recent article as one of the world’s greatest scientists — a “genius” in line for the Nobel Prize.
“What wormhole did my life take, to … protests and being called a sexual predator? What quirk in the universe allowed this to happen?” said Sabatini, who has denied wrongdoing and noted Knouse did not work in his lab or report to him.
In an October lawsuit against MIT, Sabatini said that his relationship with Knouse, who is 21 years his junior, was consensual — and told a reporter he was shocked to find himself the subject of protests at NYU when the school explored the possibility of hiring him.
Sabatini has contended he and Knouse began their fling during a 2018 conference, while he was in the midst of a divorce. By 2020, he thought the affair had cooled, though he claims Knouse wanted to continue. By October 2020, she complained she’d been harassed, and in a later lawsuit alleged Sabitini oversaw a “sexualized” environment in his lab.
What's interesting about this story to me is that it's been reported that this woman entered into this relationship with this man after he clearly communicated to her that he was only looking for something casual. I.e. - he was not trying to hide that he was a tall, hot bad boy with lots of money and power who did not want to be tied down. He was telling her that up front.
There are more details about the story in Common Sense.
After their initial hook-up...
...they met up at Knouse’s condo near Boston Common where they discussed a few ground rules for their tryst. They agreed they could see other people. Knouse, Sabatini remembers, had ongoing flings with men who she referred to with nicknames like “anesthesiologist f* buddy,” “finance bro,” and “physics professor,” and she wanted to keep it that way.** Also, they wouldn’t tell anyone. Why complicate things at work? It was all supposed to be fun.
Why did this woman get the man fired? Well, there is an old saying about women that goes like this: "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned". Apparently, Sabatini was getting interested in another woman, and less interested in Knouse:
Things were fizzling... he was getting involved with another woman, a microbiologist in Germany.
Knouse didn’t want to let go. In January 2020 she texted, in part: “I get anxious when I don’t hear back from you and then I see you post stuff on Twitter and it provides an admittedly small and silly but still another bit of evidence to this growing feeling that you don't care about me in the way that I care about you.” He wrote back: “I am sorry but you are being crazy.” In another text, Knouse admitted feeling “stung.” She added: “I think it’s worth thinking about whether you want someone who matches your passion, intellect, and ambition.”
Godless feminists think that people are faithful and committed because of self-interest, e.g. - "passion, intellect, and ambition", i.e. - self-interest. But of course, it doesn't. They think that they don't need to study to develop a worldview that rationally grounds commitment intentions and commitment ability. And they think they don't need to choose a man who has studied to develop a worldview that rationally grounds commitment intentions and commitment ability. They think that it is totally feasible for people to stay together for 50 years because it is always fun, fun, fun. You can just like fun, and choose a man who likes fun, and have a permanent, exclusive relationship based on continuous fun.
So what happened to Sabatini next?
This:
In October 2020, Knouse texted her friends that she was “unpack[ing] a ton of suppressed abuse and trauma from an obvious local source”—an apparent reference to Sabatini. Knouse’s fellowship at the Whitehead was ending, and she didn’t apply for any faculty jobs there. When the new director, Ruth Lehmann, called Knouse to ask why, Knouse complained for the first time of being “harassed.”
In November, Knouse warned her friend—an incoming Whitehead fellow—to “squeeze out as much advice as possible before your mentor is Weinstein’ed out of science.”
In December, at Lehmann’s behest, the consulting firm Jones Diversity sent the Whitehead employees a survey “based in part on Dr. Knouse’s false complaint about Dr. Sabatini,” according to a complaint later brought by Sabatini. All participants were anonymous. Five or so of the nearly 40 employees in Sabatini’s lab took part.
The next month, two former Sabatini lab members lodged complaints to H.R.—the first complaints against him in his 24-year tenure—about “bro culture” in the lab.
This prompted the Whitehead to hire the law firm Hinckley, Allen & Snyder to conduct an investigation on “gender bias and/or inequities and a retaliatory leadership in the Sabatini lab.” The Whitehead never told Sabatini what he was accused of. Former lab members told me their co-workers were sobbing when they came out of meetings with the lawyers, saying that the lawyers had put words in their mouths. “They had a very strong agenda,” one of them told me.
Knouse was 29 years old. She was not a child. Sabatini never worked with her. He never supervised her. He never threatened her or pressured her. This was a relationship between two consenting adults. But that doesn't matter, because in every school and workplace, women cannot be held responsible for their own bad choices. Women are always victims of men. It is always the man who must be punished. And men have to go to school and work in these environments for their entire lives - walking on thin ice, never knowing when the axe will fall.
Sabatini is ruined:
In the 24 hours after the report came out, Sabatini’s life fell apart. MIT put him on administrative leave. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, another prestigious non-profit that funds biomedical research and was paying Sabatini’s salary, fired him. He resigned from the Whitehead, and eventually MIT, at the advice of his lawyers who thought it would help him secure his next job. (“I one hundred percent regret that,” Sabatini told me).
Soon, the biotech startups he’d helped found— Navitor Pharmaceuticals, KSQ and Raze Therapeutics—started severing their relationships with him. Sabatini was axed from professorships, fellowships, and professional societies. Awards and grants were pulled. His income disappeared.
Knouse is still working. They decided that she didn't violate the policy - only he violated it. She has no problem at all with this outcome - she really believes she is a victim, and shouldn't have to take responsibility for her own choices. Can you imagine being married to a woman who does whatever she wants, then blames you when things go wrong? And worse - goes to the authorities to have them punish you, when she is the one who chose poorly? Who would be stupid enough to marry a woman who has zero accountability for her own choices?
ogrilla99 Mod 2y ago
"Sorry kid, your cancer will kill you because the guy working on a cure had to go work at McDonald's because he had the temerity to have consensual sex with a grown woman who was not under his leadership". Score another one for feminism.
The university sexual witch hunt committees need to be disbanded. They're a travesty of due process. If Knouse felt that she was coerced, she can go to the cops, or file a civil lawsuit. If she feels she's being discriminated against or treated unfairly in the workplace, she can file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Bottomline is that there are already laws, and government enforcement mechanisms bound by actual due process and judicial systems, to deal with these violations. Whining that it's too hard to go through that so let's get a bunch of professors around a table to discuss the case over doughnuts and render life-altering decisions with no rules of evidence or investigation is a recipe for disaster.
Ironically, the capriciousness of these committees is such that guys now understand that the primary determinant of who "wins" he says/she says cases like this is whoever files first. Because whoever lodges the first accusation is immediately protected, and the accused has very limited ways to defend themselves. Which means, what should have happened is, the minute Sabatini got even a hint that Knouse was disgruntled about where the relationship was going, and trying to get him to change his mind, he should have filed a complaint alleging coercion. Those texts she sent, especially “I think it’s worth thinking about whether you want someone who matches your passion, intellect, and ambition.” can easily be interpreted to mean she's putting pressure on you to continue in a relationship you no longer consent to.
If he had done that, based on the asinine rules of the committee, she would have been immediately barred from the campus (for his safety and to avoid triggering him by having to see her around), and a hearing would have been called without giving her any chance to provide any sort of counter evidence. And given that she violated rules around workplace sexual relationships as much as he did, she would have been found guilty.
It's utterly incomprehensible that a decision that affects 2 lives so much could rest primarily on a coin flip as to who files first. But there it is, and as guys, we just need to adjust to that reality.
His other strategy, one now commonly pursued, is to sue the University. He clearly has suffered economic and emotional damages. And if he can prove that the University violated its own policies or his right to due process, then the University will have to pay for his losses. While that will still deprive society of his potential future discoveries, at least he himself will be able to retire with a nice bank account. And maybe after enough lawsuits start causing real financial harm to Universities, they'll finally realize that playing judge, jury, and executioner, and doing a bad job at it, can be as harmful to the University as it is to a person whose due process rights are violated.
No-Stress-Cat 2y ago
This, gentlemen, is exactly why you don't shit where you eat. If it can happen to a world-famous scientist, it probably will happen to you.
aldabruzzo Mod 2y ago
It's really funny, isn't it? Women keep telling us they're strong and independent. They keep telling us they can make their own sexual decisions.
Then we have those same women telling us older men "groom" and "abuse" them.
Which is it, women? Are you strong and independent or not? Can you make your own sexual decisions or not? Are you responsible or not? Are you accountable or not?
If you can't be trusted to make your own decisions with your own bodies, why should I trust you with my money and resources? Why should I give you a house and a car? Why should I let you live in a home I purchased and spend money I make? Why should I trust you with my time and attention? Why should I allow you into my peace and quiet?