A renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer scientist who came under fire last week after suggesting in a leaked email that one of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims was “entirely willing” resigned from his post at the school Monday evening.
Richard Stallman made the announcement in an email published Monday evening, saying he would step down from his post at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
“I am resigning effective immediately from my position in CSAIL at MIT. I am doing this due to pressure on MIT and me over a series of misunderstandings and mischaracterizations,” he wrote in the email and then signed off with his name.
In the leaked emails published last week by Vice, Stallman suggested that mathematician Marvin Minsky was wrongly accused of sexual assault by Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre.
“The word ‘assaulting’ presumes that he applied force or violence, in some unspecified way, but the article itself says no such thing. Only that they had sex,” Stallman allegedly wrote, referring to an article about Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre’s testimony that she was forced to have sex with Minsky.
“The most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing,” Stallman added in the email.