Feb. 15, 2023: Sabatini Case FAQ and FMF (Frequently Misrepresented Facts)
https://twitter.com/mTOR_Leaks/status/1625861444968357888
When did Knouse and Sabatini meet?
In 2012 when she was a PhD student in the Amon lab and taking a course taught by Sabatini.
When did Sabatini serve on Knouse’s MIT thesis committee?
2012-2016, Knouse was the student of Angelika Amon. Knouse defended her PhD thesis in September 2016 and returned to medical school at HMS thereafter.
For the non-academics in the audience, thesis committee members typically meet with PhD students as a group once or twice a year and offer advice at request. Thesis students do not work for their committee members.
What was their relationship after she finished her PhD?
From the WIBR report and Spotlight pieces, it appears Knouse attended Sabatini lab social functions and was friendly with Sabatini and other Sabatini lab members (VP1, etc.). In 2016, Sabatini encouraged Knouse to apply to the WIBR Fellows Program, as did Knouse’s mentor Angelika Amon.
What letters of recommendation did Sabatini write for Knouse?
As per the report, it seems that he wrote one for her application to the WIBR Fellows program and one for the NIH Early Investigator Award, both in 2017. There is no indication that he wrote any letters of recommendation while they were sleeping together from 2018-early 2020.
When did they first make the bad choices that would lead to this mess?
As per the report and the Spotlight piece, they first became intimate on April 18, 2018 after a night of drinking at Jack Rose’s whiskey bar in the Washington, DC area. Here is some of the Spotlight article, annotated with data from the case:
Was Knouse a graduate student when that happened?
Knouse was a medical student that had defended her PhD at MIT in 2016 and was awarded her PhD in 2017. She was approximately a month short of graduating from Harvard Medical School with her MD degree. It is accurate to state that she was an MD/PhD student who had completed her PhD. However it is misleading to oversimplify and state that she was “still a graduate student” in the same sense that a PhD candidate is “still a graduate student.”
We received this incredibly helpful email that comes from someone who clearly has knowledge of the workings of the Harvard HST MD/PhD program:
Did Knouse ever work for Sabatini?
No.
When did Knouse start her own lab at WIBR?
June 1, 2018. This was weeks after she and Sabatini had gotten together at Jack Rose in Washington, DC.
So she didn’t work for Sabatini, but he had power over her, right?
In terms of seniority or academic rank, Sabatini was more powerful than Knouse. However, he had no hiring/firing ability with respect to Knouse, nor did he supervise or direct the work done by her as an independent Principal Investigator at WIBR.
But he was her WIBR Fellow Mentor—that is power, correct?
Knouse requested that Sabatini serve as her formal WIBR Fellow Mentor in 2019, in the midst of them already sleeping together. WIBR Fellow Mentors do not oversee the work of WIBR Fellows. Their only formal duties from WIBR policy that we have found is that they, at an annual WIBR Faculty retreat, summarize to other WIBR Faculty the publications and funding of the WIBR Fellow.
WIBR Fellow Mentors can not hire or fire WIBR Fellows, and serve at the request and pleasure of the individual WIBR Fellow.
Why Knouse would request Sabatini as WIBR Fellow when they were enmeshed in a sexual relationship remains unclear to us.
Okay, but he became WIBR Fellows Program Director—isn’t THAT a much more powerful position over Knouse?
As per the WIBR Fellows Program policy that we have found online or been DM’d by WIBR community members, the primary responsibility of the WIBR Fellows Program Director is to identify new potential Fellows and forward their applications to the WIBR Director (Ruth Lehmann), who makes the decision to interview Fellows.
The WIBR Fellows Program Director does not have hiring/firing power, and by the time Sabatini became director, Knouse had an independent lab and they were engaged in an ongoing sexual relationship.
I saw the report—Sabatini and Knouse had sex at the WIBR, isn’t that alone worth firing him over?
Interestingly, the report contains no claim that Sabatini and Knouse did the nasty at work, neither from Knouse or the HAS investigators. Sabatini and Knouse discussed via text the possibility of having sex at work (which, gross), but no data or claim exists to support the claim that they actually did.
Okay, but he broke WIBR policy by sleeping with Knouse, he should have been fired for that.
This is a fair assessment. However, Sabatini and Knouse both broke the same policy. The WIBR policy restricts Principal Investigators—which they both were—from having intimate relationships with any other WIBR employee. It is important to note that this policy did not exist when the Knouse-Sabatini relationship began, but was instituted in August 2018.
But he was the senior party—it was on him to report the relationship.
No such provision exists in the WIBR policy on consensual relationships.
Why didn’t they report what they were doing?
Only Knouse and Sabatini really know the answer to this question. The policy interdicting relationships like theirs went into effect in August 2018, after they had been sleeping together for months. It would have been prudent to report their relationship when this policy was enacted.
Knouse claims that she was coerced into sleeping with Sabatini—what do you have to say about that?
Coercion typically involves an actual threat. As best we can tell from the written record, no such threat was made, nor was any quid-pro-quo established. A central component of this entire affair and the defamation case proceedings is Knouse’s claim that some threat existed in her mind that compelled her to engage in a relationship she claims to have not wanted to engage in at the time. Text records suggest a mutually consensual relationship and a longstanding friendship between the two.
But Sabatini *could have* had an inappropriate influence—for good or bad—on Knouse’s career!
This is hypothetically true. However, no data exists that indicate that Sabatini either supported Knouse beyond giving scientific advice during their relationship (i.e., no letters of recommendation) or sought to hinder her career after they broke up. In fact, Knouse secured an MIT Biology Faculty job during the HAS investigation (text records between the two indicate that Sabatini cheered her on). If evidence of interference in that process exists, it has yet to come to light and will likely be discovered in the course of their legal fights.
Okay, but the investigation started by Knouse’s complaints clearly uncovered a rotten lab culture. Didn’t Sabatini bully and threaten people?
The extent of bad culture found by the HAS investigators is underwhelming in our reading. Sabatini was unhappy with four graduate students who he suspected had helped spread a rumor about himself and an undergraduate student. However, the investigators did not find any actual threats made by Sabatini towards these students.
Undergraduate?? He did WHAT with an undergraduate?
The DEI survey responses suggested something untoward with a graduate student (non-MIT Undergraduate Student 1 (NMUS1)). The investigative report found that Sabatini met with her a handful of times, and that when NMUS1 expressed over internal Slack messages a desire to see Sabatini give a talk in the UK while they were both in the country, Sabatini offered to help fund the cost of a changed flight if NMUS1 wished to see his talk at a conference. These events were construed by the HAS investigators as “an inappropriate relationship.”
You mentioned a DEI survey. Didn’t cultural complaints about the Sabatini lab from this survey officially help trigger the investigation?
Yes. This survey was circulated at WIBR in Dec. 2020, and the results shared with WIBR by Jones Diversity in March 2021. The three negative complaints about Sabatini came from Knouse (White Female 1) and two individuals outside of the Sabatini lab.
With respect to Sabatini’s lab members, it appears that only ~5 lab members answered the survey and did not voice any complaints about the Sabatini lab or Sabatini. According to a lab alumni who messaged us, this includes Sabatini and his administrative assistant (RSS3, we presume). This is from a lab that at the time contained 35-40 members.
We have written at length about how the DEI survey answers were inflammatory and largely were not supported by the data uncovered by the HAS investigation.
What about the “other victims,” I hear that there are “other victims” beyond Knouse?
There are no other women alleging sexual harassment by Sabatini. As best we can tell the complainants about Sabatini are:
Knouse: who alleges that their relationship constituted sexual harassment.
MGS5: A former lab member and friend of Knouse who met with WIBR HR in January 2021 to state that the Sabatini lab had a “bro culture.” She did not participate in the HAS investigation.
PD11: A former lab member and friend of Knouse who met with WIBR HR in January 2021 to state that the Sabatini lab had a “bro culture.” She did not participate in the HAS investigation.
PD6: A Sabatini lab postdoc and friend of Knouse who initially reported no complaints to HAS investigators, then later claimed that members of the lab made her feel uncomfortable after an event known as “cakegate.” The HAS investigation found no examples of lab members having bullied or retaliated against PD6 for her incorrectly assumed participation in reporting “cakegate” to WIBR EHS/HR.
MGS19: Knouse’s graduate student who relayed second-hand information to investigators and claimed—despite minimal apparent interaction with Sabatini—that his presence at WIBR during the investigation made her “feel unsafe.”
Anne Carpenter: A former Sabatini lab postdoc who did not participate in the HAS investigation. Despite an extensive Twitter history of praising Sabatini, Carpenter began protesting the Sabatini lab culture in April 2022. Her statement to the Spotlight team is here:
Kathleen Ottina: A former lab manager who has publicly objected to profanity used by Sabatini and members of the Sabatini lab. Her comments to the Spotlight team is here:
Just because there aren’t other women alleging sexual harassment by Sabatini doesn’t mean there aren’t other victims?
Technically this is true. But this is why investigations—whether the HAS one or the Spotlight one—are undertaken.
The lab culture sounds suspect—was there a history of complaints made to HR over the years?
The only HR complaints about Sabatini or the Sabatini lab appear to be the suspiciously coincident complaints by MGS5 and PD11 in January 2021. Whether these were made by Knouse’s friends at her behest is something that only Knouse and MGS5/PD11 know.
Prior to the events of this case, there is no record of HR complaints. They likely would have been included in the HAS report.
Sabatini was fired by three institutions who did independent investigations!
Sabatini resigned from WIBR hours before he was to be fired (August 2021), was fired by HHMI (August 2021), and resigned from MIT after administrators recommended revocation of tenure but Sabatini declined his right to request a full tenure review (April 2022).
The only real investigation that occurred was the WIBR HAS investigation. MIT and HHMI relied on the findings of the HAS report generated by WIBR’s outside counsel and do not appear to have performed their own investigation.
Who is mTOR_Leaks? Are you Sabatini’s PR firm?
We are old alumni of the WIBR, as we have discussed at length here and on various Twitter threads. We are disturbed by the institutional damage that WIBR is experiencing as a result of this entire affair.
We took up this effort first as a way to understand this case through legal filings, we didn’t actually expect that someone would send us the HAS Report. The anonymous contributor remains unknown to us and never responded to further queries. As with all contributions to mTOR_Leaks, we have deleted their messages and can only be reached by them if they reach out to us.
The suggestion that we are a component of Sabatini’s PR efforts is comical. We work for nobody.
But surely you are Sabatini?
Again, no. If we were Sabatini or anybody close to him, we would likely know (and leak) much more data about this case. In fact, the reality that we are not personally proximal to this case is what gives us the ability to operate freely.