Jury's $6M defamation verdict for David Sabatini against Kristin Knouse stirs MIT, heads to appeal

Mixed · 2A jury in Boston in October awarded David Sabatini, a biologist formerly at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a $6 million defamation judgment against Kristin Knouse, a younger scientist who had accused him of sexual misconduct. 1 2 Right · 1Fox News reported that the jury denied Knouse's counterclaims of harassment and ordered her to pay Sabatini for defamation. 2 Right · 1The two first met in 2012, when Knouse was a doctoral student in the Harvard-MIT M.D./Ph.D. program and Sabatini sat on her thesis committee; according to court documents they began a relationship in 2018, after Knouse became a Whitehead Fellow. 2

Right · 1Sabatini maintained the relationship was consensual, while Knouse alleged it was coerced; a 2021 Whitehead investigation found Sabatini violated its workplace relationship policy. 2 Mixed · 2Sabatini was ousted from the Whitehead Institute at MIT over the relationship; Fox News adds that MIT stripped him of his tenured position and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute dismissed him. 1 2 Right · 1Fox News, citing Boston 25 News, reported that text messages made public in the case showed Knouse writing of a hotel-room visit on a work retreat, "In hindsight, it was quite aggressive, #hetoo," and that she called her campaign against Sabatini "Covert Operation Dethrone" and joked about buying a "Lambo" if she won a settlement. 2

Centre · 1Knouse, no longer at the Whitehead Institute, still works at MIT as a biology professor running a lab on organ regeneration; students in her lab told the Boston Globe, reported by STAT, that they have received antagonistic emails from the public since the verdict. 1 Centre · 1On campus, some argue the judgment will discourage others from bringing sexual harassment claims, while others are lobbying MIT to reevaluate Sabatini's position there. 1 Right · 1Knouse's attorney, Ellen Zucker, told Fox News Digital that the verdict could stop people from reporting misconduct and that she does not believe the verdicts will stand; Sabatini's attorney, Lisa G. Arrowood, said the verdict has no bearing on people who report truthfully because the jury found Knouse's claims were false and defamatory. 2

Right · 1Both sides are preparing cross-appeals: Knouse is challenging the verdict, and Sabatini's team will seek to overturn the earlier dismissal of the Whitehead Institute from the lawsuit; the appellate briefing schedule is pending. 2 Right · 1MIT and HHMI were not defendants in the defamation lawsuit; MIT declined to comment and pointed to a 2022 staff letter saying Sabatini had "behaved in ways incompatible with the responsibilities of faculty membership," and HHMI did not respond. 2 Right · 1Sabatini now continues cancer research in a Prague laboratory funded by billionaire Bill Ackman, according to Fox News. 2