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Lawrence Lessig sues New York Times over MIT and Jeffrey Epstein interview
Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig is suing The New York Times over an interview about the MIT Media Lab accepting money from sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Lessig's defamation suit covers a September 2019 article titled "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein's Money, Do It in Secret." He claims the headline misrepresents his interview, where he condemns the donation, but says that "if you're going to take the money, you damn well better make it anonymous."
Lessig is the founder of Creative Commons and a longtime policy activist; he once ran for president on the promise to pass a single anti-corruption law and then resign. He's also a friend of former MIT Media Lab president Joichi Ito. When Ito admitted last year to secretly receiving around $800,000 from Epstein, Lessig signed a supportive letter and argued that accepting secret donations was better than publicly laundering a criminal's reputation — although he said taking Epstein's money at all was wrong in retrospect.
Times reporter Nellie Bowles interviewed Lessig about the donations and appeared unimpressed by his reasoning. "It is hard to defend soliciting donations from the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. But Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Law professor, has been trying," she wrote in the article's opening paragraph. Lessig quickly dubbed the piece "clickbait defamation" by the Times. Now, he's turned that accusation into an actual defamation complaint and launched it with a full-fledged multimedia campaign, including a website called "Lessig v. Clickbait Defamation" and a related podcast.
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(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Thursday January 16 2020, @08:54PM (3 children)
The NYT piece has this from the interview:
Ascribing a "genuine belie[f], after doing really extensive due diligence" to someone is a defense. Describing their behavior with the word "virtue" is also a defense.
Lessig's defense of Ito amounts to that, yes. Ito closed his eyes to wrongdoing and Lessig is trotting out procedure-following and institutional greed as excuses. That Lessig also condemned the money-grubbing amounts to trying to have it both ways.
Lessig is a lawyer and used to advocating for clients professionally. If it's a job, I guess their shit doesn't stick to him. If he volunteers to defend them outside the courtroom, it does.
I stopped reading the NYT uncritically after they convinced me in 2003 to support the Iraq war, but WMDs were never found. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. However, beggars can't be choosers.
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday January 16 2020, @10:00PM (2 children)
That's a really interesting way to look at the situation. I had not pondered something like that. I definitely see layering along the lines of legal fiction being used by Lessig and as you say it is his job to do stuff like that. I do appreciate the discussion. We have a meeting of the minds for sure that Lessig should have said nothing at all. It sure is sad when people sink themselves like this - he should know better. I wonder if he is so wrapped up in this that he'll ignore legal council telling him to drop it then go and represent himself.
It breached a topic that is new to me though I really should have known better. There is likely tons of dirty money all over institutions like MIT because of people making poor decisions like Ito.
So what do we do then? You originally wondered where the slander is and it doesn't look like he's got much of a case. The assertion was made that if the donations are going to happen that it should be done so anonymously. Is that not the lesser of two evils? Do we open it up so everyone can see what the evil is doing instead?
I was raised being taught to question the media so I've always been skeptical. But what I was not prepared for was utterly false information being distributed by seemingly reputable places. I got interested in detail regarding gun control as it's become a big ass topic lately. Regardless of a pro or con position on gun control and quite objectively it is easy to prove the media is disseminating completely false information. I have seen many reports from many different news outlets on this larger topic. I care enough about this space to actually go and read proposed and passed legislation in this space. A common theme is reporters saying something like "this is only about registration" or "this only applies to assault rifles" or "no one is banning any kind of gun" when the bills they are discussing do exactly those things. I've seen one guy in Virginia go on a rant about how all those counties are making a big deal over very little just basic things like stronger background investigations. In reality, at the time (this bill has since been withdrawn, to the best of my knowledge) they were talking about banning all sales of all rifles and making possession of them a crime with out any kind of grandfather clause for current owners.
I read a Reuters article that gets details like this wrong as well with a gun ban near me. Reuters. I did not expect that. I don't know if they are lazy or what but it is causing an uninformed populace.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Coward, Anonymous on Thursday January 16 2020, @10:33PM (1 child)
I wish MIT would keep its nose clean and focus on academic excellence. If they need to cut the budget, its ok to slim down. Media Lab has always been a sketchy place. Bulldoze it for all I care. There is an upside to being more selective and the funny money can go to universities with lower standards.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Knowledge Troll on Thursday January 16 2020, @11:33PM
I'm really glad I engaged with you - I don't know why I got caught in the trap of more money because I already know better.
Thank you, sincerely, I really enjoyed the discussion.