Most of us aren’t familiar with the name David Sabatini because we’re not into biology, but he was kind of a big deal when he was a tenured prof at MIT running the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research. Until he was accused of sexual impropriety.
Last August, Dr. Sabatini was placed on administrative leave at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he ran a research lab through the Whitehead Institute of Biomedical Research, after an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment made against him — conducted by a law firm separate from the university — found he had violated the institute’s sexual misconduct policy.
The particulars of the accusation are unknown, but it appears to be based upon his having a consensual sexual relationship with a former student he had mentored. Sabatini decided to fight back.
In October 2021, Dr. Sabatini filed a lawsuit against the Whitehead Institute and his accuser, a former colleague, claiming that he had been wrongly accused of sexual harassment by the colleague, with whom he said he had had a consensual relationship. The accuser filed a countersuit in December, claiming Dr. Sabatini had coerced her into having sex, that he had created a “toxic and sexually charged lab environment” and that he had “groomed” her while she was still a graduate student being mentored by him.
Eventually, this action will be resolved one way or another, but what becomes of Dr. Sabatini until then? He resigned from MIT after the report of the investigation concluded he violated policy, even though these reports are notorious for reaching the conclusion they were charged to reach so as to create the appearance of a fair investigation while achieving the goal to provide the school with cover for its pacifying its outraged students. Maybe that didn’t occur here, but that, too, isn’t known.
But what’s Dr. Sabatini to do now? Unlike Louis CK and J.K.Rowling, the big names who are invariably pulled out as examples that people aren’t really canceled, David Sabatini was a big deal in biology.
Dr. Sabatini, 54, is a prominent biologist, best known for his discovery of the mTOR protein, which regulates cell growth in animals, as a graduate student.
Word spread that he was to be hired by NYU’s Grossman School of Medicine, which one might suspect would be a pretty big thing to score such a prominent biology researcher. Not so fast.
More than 100 people stretched across First Avenue in front of the N.Y.U. Medical Center, chanting and holding signs with slogans like “No means no” and “No to Sabatini.” They said they felt betrayed and confused by the possibility that Dr. Sabatini might join their school, which was reported in science.org.
“I hope he doesn’t get hired,” said Grant Hussey, a graduate student at the medical school. “The track record is clear.”
The “track record,” whatever that means, is anything but clear. It wasn’t as if there was an accusation, no less a finding after due process was afforded, that Sabatini was roaming the hallways in search of women to sexually assault. This grievance was one person after a relationship ended, which is a rather normal fact pattern for such accusations. There was also an allegation that his lab was a “toxic and sexually charged lab environment,” another claim that’s too vague to be meaningful.
And yet there were the protesters at NYU chanting “no means no.” There was no reason to believe that he ignored a “no” and forced himself upon someone, yet they chanted.
Standing outside N.Y.U. on Wednesday, several medical school students and employees said that if Dr. Sabatini were to be hired, they would not attend his seminars and would avoid any school functions he goes to.
“We’re still at the point where we’re hoping we can have our voices heard enough before this actually goes through,” Dr. Kirchgessner said.
Would they not attend his seminars because they feared he would leap across the desk and sexually attack students? Would they fear that being at a school function with him would make them “unsafe”? Or is this the way, as Megan Kirchgessner says, for them to punish Dr. Sabatini for being accused? While it’s only “several” medical students and employees, whatever that means, will NYU want this eminent biologist enough to ignore the fact that the possibility that he might be hired was sufficient to draw a protest?
At the protest, Megan Kirchgessner, a postdoctoral fellow at the medical school, said she was disappointed that the school would consider hiring a person facing accusations of sexual harassment when the role could have been offered to someone from an underrepresented background in science.
“It was kind of a moment of a cynical reality check,” Dr. Kirchgessner said.
Cynical, indeed, particularly given Kirchgessner’s taking up a postdoc seat that could have been offered to someone from an underrepresented background if that was her real concern. Are biologists at NYU fungible or did Dr. Sabatini bring something of prominence to the job?
It will likely be years before the results of the suit, and countersuit, will be known, whether resolved by motion or trial. Until then, the accusation against Dr. Sabatini has cost him his position at MIT and will likely preclude his being hired elsewhere. Perhaps he did something to deserve this treatment, although the “offense” of engaging in a consensual relationship with a former student was once a not uncommon thing in academia, and resulted in some wonderful marriages and relationships.
But now that the power dynamic reduces any relationship to impropriety, it may well be that Dr. Sabatini is “guilty” of violating MIT’s policies against such relationships. But that neither makes him a rapist nor someone to be feared. Yet, there they are at NYU, protesting the possibility of his being hired. Is there no future for Dr. David Sabatini?
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