00:01:30.700Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:36.620This episode includes mentions of sex trafficking, sex crimes against minors,
00:01:40.260and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
00:01:46.280There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.
00:01:54.400I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.
00:01:59.620Right now, one of the biggest questions making the rounds is what exactly is Donald Trump's connection to Jeffrey Epstein?
00:02:06.720We recently broke down why those questions still linger and what they might mean in a recent episode of the show, which we'll put in the show notes.
00:02:13.340But Trump is not the only powerful figure with ties to Epstein.
00:02:17.360In fact, one of the very first episodes we ever did on There Are No Girls on the Internet was a conversation with Kenyan technologist Ottawa Umboya.
00:02:26.080Back then, Ottawa was a grad student at MIT's Influential Media Lab and became one of the first people to publicly call out her own university's connections to Epstein,
00:02:36.740ultimately calling for the resignation of the lab's director over it.
00:02:40.420It was one of the stories that initially inspired me to start this podcast in the first place.
00:02:45.160You know, here was this brave student speaking up about what she knew to be wrong in her own tech community,
00:02:50.840and instead of support, she faced attacks for it.
00:02:53.820And I guess that's tale as old as time, the cost of being right.
00:02:57.960So today, we're revisiting that important conversation.
00:03:05.400You've probably heard about American financier Jeffrey Epstein.
00:03:09.600Epstein pled guilty and was convicted in 2008 of procuring an underage girl for sex.
00:03:14.500In July of last year, he was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking.
00:03:20.420He was found dead in prison in August.
00:03:22.660In addition to his connection to powerful political figures like Bill Clinton, Queen Elizabeth's son Prince Andrew, and credibly accused rapist President Donald Trump,
00:03:31.100Epstein also had deep connections to the tech world, despite being a convicted sex offender.
00:14:13.020The word feminist sometimes seems radical to people, but I just am a product of so many amazing women that it's not shocking that I search for even more inspiration from other women on the continent or on the world.
00:14:29.460After her letter calling for Ito to resign was published, things got rough for Ottawa.
00:14:34.360So what was the climate like for you at MIT after you published your piece?0.95
00:14:41.460i mean the very next day or the day after i publish this article like a website comes out
00:14:48.120saying we support jury eto and it's signed by like you know pretty much like every professor
00:14:55.120at the media lab and it's signed by all you know my colleagues and all these people and it's a
00:15:01.520direct response to my one article and so you know it wasn't nice i was getting you know some not
00:15:06.980nice comments but I was able to ignore most of them and and feel okay but it really highlighted
00:15:13.460to me how fearful people can get when you speak the truth or when you say your own truth because
00:15:19.400for me a whole website springing up with like it's signed with all these hundreds of names just
00:15:26.300because one student wrote an article is shocking to me and that student has no power like I don't
00:15:35.060know why there was so much fear or so much anger so much defense because nobody else there was lots
00:15:42.200of articles about it there was lots of articles that were very non-partisan and saying what
00:15:47.200happened but nobody asked for him to be resigned to resign except me and it's almost as if like
00:15:54.760that one statement or that one article like was like a way through the media lab and everyone was
00:16:00.700like pushing back as if what I said might sort of break the whole media lab or make it fall apart.
00:16:07.440And some people still today think it's my fault, like for sure.
00:16:12.020And, you know, there's nothing I can do about that.
00:16:14.780And I'm not going to sort of try to pander to those people.
00:16:18.080But I don't know, it just showed me, it really taught me the power of words.
00:16:21.680We'll be right back after this quick break.
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00:17:13.560if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality welcome home
00:17:19.740This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:17:32.200I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:17:39.180I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:19:39.820All of it makes it harder for people who exist outside of that power to speak out about bad behavior.
00:19:45.160Why do you think the Media Lab overlooked Epstein's crimes?
00:19:48.820Do you think it was just the money and they didn't care where it came from?
00:19:51.880Or do you think it was something else?
00:19:54.320I know that some people knew and some people didn't know.
00:19:57.280So I can really only speak for the person that I know for sure knew, which is Joey.
00:20:01.880and the rest I don't know and you know he he wielded a lot of power in this lab we do know
00:20:09.780for a fact that there were people who who including my advisor Ethan Zuckerman who spoke out and said
00:20:16.020that this was not a good idea and said that we shouldn't take money from Epstein and they were
00:20:21.220ignored. I mean, the hard cold truth is that money is power. And there is a massive incentive
00:20:31.600to ignore certain problems or ethics if you're going to get power by ignoring them. I think
00:20:38.720the other thing to remember with the Epstein situation is that he wasn't giving the media
00:20:42.820that much money anyway. I think a lot of the money that was, an MIT report just came out on the
00:20:50.060funding issue and we found out that joey was actually trying to secure a much bigger pot of
00:20:54.300funding for his own venture capital funds um so huge incentive to ignore what was sort of
00:21:03.640on the surface um and then the other thing is just i don't think men get it all the time
00:21:10.700like i don't think i sometimes i really think that some people thought that it's just not that
00:21:16.100big a deal because they have no understanding on what that relationship, even in and of itself,
00:21:23.240but without money, means for the victims of Epstein's. They have no idea how this consolidation
00:21:28.600of power represses the victims and silences them. It almost sounds like Epstein was trying to use
00:21:35.560his money to kind of create this cover so that if anybody ever tried to call him out on his actions,
00:21:40.380he could just be like, oh, well, look at all these powerful, influential men I surround myself with.
00:21:45.000in some ways was really smart because he didn't actually have that much money. He wasn't a Bill
00:21:51.440Gates, but had enough to sort of know the right people and actually build a social circle around
00:21:58.460himself that included politicians, scientists, artists, businessmen. And it was so strong that
00:22:07.540everybody wanted to be a part of it. And it was Epstein's name that you had to know to get sort
00:22:14.380in that circle. Ottawa still thinks highly of MIT, but the backlash she faced for speaking out
00:22:20.520against Joy Ito showed her that things are not always as shiny as they look from the outside.
00:22:25.220I think the media lab, you know, it's hard because I love this place. Like I've had
00:22:30.500a fantastic two years. I've learned so much. I've grown so much and I wouldn't change it for
00:22:36.920anything. But I think this experience has just been such an example of that because it's so
00:22:43.120shiny on the outside like it's so glamorous everyone wants to be here but that doesn't
00:22:49.060that doesn't mean that we don't have issues institutional issues of power and race and class
00:22:54.020and all these other things that might make the play sound not so amazing do you think that there
00:22:59.360should be more scrutiny on other powerful men who had like financial entanglements with epstein i
00:23:04.140feel like a lot of them have sort of been able to skirt public scrutiny and like public question
00:23:10.480asking about what what exactly their dealings with this person were oh yeah for sure yeah i think
00:23:16.520you know from the out i mean because i can't speak for much more than mit but i know you know
00:23:22.980even harvard had relations that took a lot of money from i've seen but they just declined to
00:23:27.640even talk about it and so it just they sort of took the mom uh path and everyone forgot about
00:23:35.740it, whereas at MIT, it was so widely talked about. And Epstein's network is so extensive
00:23:43.400that going through every single man who interacted with him, or a woman for that matter, actually,
00:23:51.720who interacted with him and took money from him and what they knew and how they knew it
00:23:55.480is extremely difficult. So I don't know how to do that. But there should be a way larger
00:24:02.940conversation around these networks of power whether we isolate individuals within them or not
00:24:09.900and I think that also has a lot to do with who's willing to speak who's willing to come forward
00:24:15.140with information because the last week you know we when we don't know anything all we can do is
00:24:19.780speculate and they have power and that doesn't really work so yeah I don't know I feel like
00:24:24.940everyone should be held accountable for sure but it's I don't even know where you start with Epstein
00:24:31.040You know, I almost wonder if this is part of a deliberate strategy of Epstein's, getting his money in so many powerful places and hands and institutions that untangling it almost seems kind of impossible.
00:24:41.200Yeah. And I'm a firm believer that nothing is impossible.
00:24:45.160But, you know, there's such a close link.
00:24:47.860And I'm not saying that anyone who took his money did anything more than that.
00:24:52.040But there is, you know, especially with the people who are closer with him, there is a link with those people and victims, you know.
00:24:58.660And I think right now what needs to happen is that the victim's narratives need to be centered, you know, and the people who have been hurt by Epstein need to have space to say, you know, this is how I was hurt.
00:25:11.560This is how I'm feeling. This is what I need to recover.
00:25:14.620And sort of if they feel up for it, these are the people who hurt me beyond Epstein.
00:25:20.340It's hard to admit that people and institutions that mean a lot to us are actually fostering abusive behavior.
00:25:26.880Joy was a beloved figure at MIT, and that made it that much harder for the community to reckon with the fact that he enabled, benefited from, and covered up for an abuser.
00:25:35.700Joey himself was a figure of so much awe and inspiration and resource to the Media Lab students and faculty
00:25:47.440that people didn't want to believe that, you know, he had done this thing that they didn't agree with.
00:25:54.380And it was much easier if we just said, OK, let's sweep it under the rug and move on and pretend like this never happened.
00:25:59.920and so I understand that to some degree but you know the world is like constantly changing and
00:26:06.900I think if you're sort of always that person on the bottom of the ladder in certain societies like
00:26:11.900it's always it always comes from the bottom up like it's always that change in institution
00:26:17.060is never going to happen by the people who for who the institution is working and
00:26:23.040the media lab was working for me it wasn't you know I was having a great time but I didn't have
00:26:28.420the same feelings about the director that most of my naysayers had you know like I wasn't actually
00:26:37.580giving up I don't know funding for a specific project by calling him out so in other ways it
00:26:44.080was easier for me than I you know I get why it was easier for me than other people but for a place
00:26:50.600that calls itself the future factory for a place that prides itself in imagining and creating the
00:26:56.620future literally like the standard has got to be higher and it's got to be higher not from a tech
00:27:03.080perspective but from a human perspective too and so this is where it starts to look like the academy
00:27:08.180awards um so uh first i want to invite up the uh winners of the 250 000 disobedience uh award uh
00:27:16.040the second largest cast prize at mit i would say after the lemelson award for innovation
00:27:20.800So Tarana Burke and Sherry Martz and Bethann McLaughlin, please come up.
00:27:27.780With this award, we are recognizing their leadership and dedication in amplifying the
00:27:32.220voices of survivors of sexual violence and harassment, fomenting positive change towards
00:27:36.640gender equality, and demonstrating defiance in the face of oppression and apathy.
00:27:49.140The award came with a $250,000, no-strings-attached prize.
00:27:54.120In 2018, it was awarded to Me Too creator Tarana Burke, Beth Ann McLaughlin, and Shara Martz as representatives of Me Too and the Me Too in STEM movement that highlighted people speaking up against sexual harassment in technology.
00:32:13.880When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine months.
00:32:19.160I survived and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed
00:32:25.140them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the Survivor Files. I just remember this low taunting
00:32:32.680voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything. Every week I'm with survivors who
00:32:40.280live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me. I
00:32:47.100I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed, and I just started screaming.
00:32:54.440They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.
00:32:58.440But these aren't stories about what's taken from them.
00:33:01.880They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.
00:33:05.520Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:33:13.300If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.
00:33:20.200This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.
00:33:32.360I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.
00:33:39.500I'm going to have to look up this story.
00:33:42.520from best-selling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments
00:33:47.500nothing is off the table it's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling
00:33:54.060characters and that is a trojan horse whether you're looking for literary deep dives smart
00:33:59.340pop culture conversations or a community of readers who love to think a little too much
00:34:04.100you're in the right place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever
00:34:10.560you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. And we're back. Even though they had never met,
00:34:20.760Sabrina was inspired by Ottawa's actions at MIT. She remembered all the times in her own career
00:34:25.460that she spoke out against sexism and racism and got vitriol for it. Speaking out takes guts and
00:34:30.860leadership. And Sabrina couldn't rewatch the pattern of a woman without institutional power1.00
00:34:34.980behind her being criticized for daring to speak up for what's right. Even as Ronan Farrow was
00:34:39.780praised for doing the exact same thing. And while his reporting was a big part of why Ido stepped
00:34:44.700down, it wasn't Farrow who was risking his personal safety by speaking up. It was Adela.
00:34:49.760The thing about this that really struck me was not just the vulnerability of her visibility,
00:34:57.380like when she did step up and speak out and say something, she was met with not even no support,
00:35:03.460but with a lot of hatred and anger, but the invisibility of her leadership when a white guy
00:35:10.620says the same thing that she said, and he's not even a part of the MIT community.
00:35:17.580His safety, Ronan Farrell's safety was never in question. And I wasn't okay with watching yet
00:35:24.920another pattern of someone outside of a community and institution with prestige be validated
00:35:33.160as a legitimate voice, I didn't want to be, I didn't want my silence to be complicit in
00:35:39.800continuing that pattern. Sabrina thought that Ottawa should get some kind of recognition
00:35:45.120per actions at MIT. That's when Sabrina got the idea for the Bold Prize. MIT has this thing called0.80
00:35:51.540the Disobedience Prize. It is a $250,000 cash award, no strings attached, given to social
00:35:59.340change leaders who speak truth to power and practice moral leadership and ethics. And I thought
00:36:06.140MIT has no right to say what ethical leadership looks like if they are letting this man stay in
00:36:15.260this role, if they're letting this happen to young Black women in their community. So I was like,
00:36:21.440hey, I have a voice and I have power and I can do something and I can say something.
00:36:27.260I wanted this young woman to know that I see her. So and then I was like, you know what?
00:36:33.420Why don't I give you an award? So I said, would it be OK if I crowdfunded a leadership prize for
00:36:40.300you? And she was like, that would be really sweet. Thank you so much. I wrote a letter
00:36:44.140that you see on BullPrize.com where I said that, you know, I do not know her, but I admire her
00:36:52.220courage and that I wasn't okay watching a young Black woman speak up and lead with courage and
00:37:03.020not only not be seen, but also be harmed for it. I think if we need to, there's the world as it is
00:37:11.000and the world as it should be. And if we want to build the world as it should be,
00:37:16.100then we need to reframe what leadership looks like so that when these events happen,
00:37:20.620people like Ottawa are not seen as the bad actors they're seen as the future and they're seen as
00:37:27.520world builders so I wanted to use my voice and my power and my relationships and resources
00:37:32.680to shift the conversation from blame to leadership from the world as it is to the world that it
00:37:40.000should be and that it is not just her right to speak out to protect women in her community but
00:37:49.180But also, it's within all of our abilities to speak out and do the same thing.
00:37:54.800The other piece that did not sit well with me was watching really powerful people that we both know not recognize their own power and agency.
00:38:04.200So I believe in the power of invitation.
00:38:08.140And I don't believe that they weren't doing anything out of malice or ignorance, but the fact that an opportunity for them to participate in something different and transformative wasn't there.
00:38:45.240She wrote, I stand by my advisor and his bold decision to step down.
00:38:48.380And I was like, oh, that word bold. And then three, when I was in a situation where I was speaking out against sexual misconduct and racial injustice, one of the people who were complicit in covering it up had the audacity to call me bold.
00:39:01.960And I thought to myself, yeah, you know, I am bold. And maybe this wouldn't be so hard if more people were.
00:39:08.040MIT's Media Lab is called the Future Factory, but do we even want a future designed by powerful
00:39:19.100people that would look the other way when it comes to abuse? What kind of future would that
00:39:23.160leave us with? The choices that MIT made to enable Epstein and be complicit in covering
00:39:33.380for a sexual predator, those were deliberate decisions and choices that were made outside
00:39:43.480And so to somehow envelope that into, like, they get to be leaders on what ethics look
00:39:53.440like, and not only just what ethics look like, but what the future can be in a hold.
00:39:57.960I don't want a future imagined by people who participate in systems like this.
00:40:04.720So I want to build a future with leaders like Ottawa who not only make choices to do the hard, see something hard and do it anyways, but are willing to absorb the blowback that comes with it because it's the right thing to do.
00:40:23.060Through crowdfunding, Sabrina raised over $40,000 for Ottawa
00:40:26.300as the inaugural recipient of the Bold Prize.