There Are No Girls on the Internet - Jeffrery Epstein, MIT and the Grad Student Who Spoke Up

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00:00:50.080 I survived nine months in captivity,

00:00:53.240 and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them.

00:00:58.760 I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are The Survivor Files.

00:01:02.380 Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced.

00:01:09.920 These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:01:13.740 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:01:21.360 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:01:27.080 Pro Society is a weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:01:35.740 Each week, we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and pop culture with your favorite writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions.

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00:01:51.160 This episode includes mentions of sex trafficking, sex crimes against minors, and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

00:02:01.360 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:02:09.960 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:02:15.780 You've probably heard about American financier Jeffrey Epstein.

00:02:19.920 Epstein pled guilty and was convicted in 2008 of procuring an underage girl for sex.

00:02:25.120 In July of last year, he was arrested on charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking.

00:02:30.600 He was found dead in prison in August.

00:02:32.440 In addition to his connection to powerful political figures like Bill Clinton, Queen Elizabeth's son Prince Andrew, and credibly accused rapist President Donald Trump,

00:02:41.420 Epstein also had deep connections to the tech world, despite being a convicted sex offender.

00:02:46.720 On September 7th, Ronan Farrow published an exposé in The New Yorker

00:02:50.320 that found that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT,

00:02:54.380 had a deeper fundraising relationship with Epstein than it had previously acknowledged,

00:02:58.420 even as officials knew he was a convicted sex offender,

00:03:01.240 and that the university went to great lengths to cover it up.

00:03:04.680 Now here's just some of what Farrow found.

00:03:06.720 Even though Epstein was disqualified in MIT's official donor database,

00:03:10.100 the Media Lab continued to accept money from him, consulted him about the use of funds,

00:03:14.600 and, by marking his contributions as anonymous, avoided disclosing their full extent, both publicly and within the university.

00:03:22.120 Epstein appeared to act as a go-between for wealthy donors like Bill Gates to pump money into MIT.

00:03:26.960 According to Farrow, MIT's efforts to conceal Epstein's connections to the university went so far

00:03:31.700 that staff referred to Epstein as Voldemort, or he who must not be named.

00:03:36.200 Whistleblower Signe Swenson, a former MIT development associate,

00:03:39.680 told Farrow that the lab's leadership made it explicit, even in her earliest days with them,

00:03:43.920 that Epstein's donations had to be kept secret.

00:03:47.020 Staffers knew about MIT's relationship with Epstein.

00:03:50.280 Prominent faculty advisor Ethan Zuckerman resigned in protest.

00:03:54.600 After Pharaoh's piece was published, Joy Ito, the director of the MIT Media Lab, resigned.

00:03:59.800 In the latest fallout connected to Jeffrey Epstein, MIT is opening an investigation

00:04:03.800 into its ties to the financier and convicted sex offender.

00:04:07.200 The announcement came just one day after The New Yorker revealed that MIT's Media Lab

00:04:11.380 was attempting to conceal donations from Epstein.

00:04:13.920 now there's a lot to say about jeffrey epstein but this story isn't really about him it's about

00:04:23.980 courage community and power we hear a lot about epstein's horrific crimes and most people credit

00:04:30.320 ronan farrow with bringing their full scope to light but even before ronan farrow's piece was

00:04:35.040 published women in the mit community spoke up and we should honor their voices too to the future

00:04:41.760 MIT's Media Lab, a place that follows crazy ideas wherever they may lead.

00:04:48.420 We get to think about the future.

00:04:50.460 What does the world look like 10 years, 20 years, 30 years?

00:04:53.080 What should it look like?

00:04:54.980 The MIT Media Lab is an important place.

00:04:58.140 CBS even dubbed it the Future Factory.

00:05:00.720 And it's where technologist Ottawa Mboya knew she had to be. 0.99

00:05:04.680 Yeah, I came here because it is sort of a place for misfits. 0.98

00:05:09.840 the Media Lab. It is interdisciplinary and has sort of the intersection of tech and art and design 1.00

00:05:18.500 and that was what I was looking for when I graduated from undergrad. I worked for a couple

00:05:23.520 years back in Nairobi where I'm from and became a VR developer on the side on top of my job

00:05:30.880 and needed to I was sort of like looking for somewhere to find myself and I'd heard about

00:05:38.340 the Media Lab and how sort of civic-minded one of the groups was called Civic Media.

00:05:44.120 And our motto is tech for social change.

00:05:47.740 And I was like, well, that sounds like exactly what I want to do.

00:05:51.380 Yeah, so I applied and then it worked out. 0.94

00:05:54.140 Ottawa was raised and shaped by a community of strong, resilient women.

00:05:57.620 And that upbringing has been a big part of how she shows up to the world today.

00:06:01.140 Yeah, for sure.

00:06:01.760 I mean, my work is always about women and it's always about women in Africa.

00:06:07.380 sometimes it's a bit more general than than that but I have worked in Nairobi my whole life

00:06:14.880 I've studied away from Nairobi but always try to bring back my research and the questions that I'm

00:06:20.600 asking to home and the women that I've worked with in informal settlements in Kenya but you know

00:06:29.440 that's just my research but how I approach studying and how I approach being in big institutions is

00:06:34.440 definitely sort of inspired by how I was raised by my mom and my grandma. And I have like a thousand

00:06:41.100 aunts, grew up in something of a matriarchy, I would say. So yeah, for sure. So you were raised 1.00

00:06:47.380 in like a community of strong, badass women? Yeah. And like really scary ones too. So like 1.00

00:06:53.520 you look at them with a lot of love and admiration, but also a lot of fear.

00:06:57.360 Aduba works with virtual reality. So that means she has to be able to imagine worlds that haven't

00:07:02.320 even been seen yet. It's a spirit that drives her, both personally and professionally. Do you think

00:07:08.020 that that sort of work has helped you kind of imagine a future where things can be better than

00:07:13.840 they are? Yeah, I think so. I would say so. I think I've always sort of had that in me before

00:07:20.060 I started playing on VR and AI. And I think those projects are sort of things that are already

00:07:26.940 within me as opposed to things that have made me think a certain way and I don't know I grew up

00:07:32.900 just reading and listening to a lot of amazing women and men actually my grand both my grandpas

00:07:37.840 are fantastic men and have been so influential in shaping Kenya and imagining Kenya differently

00:07:45.840 that I yeah I would say it's totally in me and you know when I wrote that it wasn't even so much

00:07:53.060 that I was, so when I was sort of talking against my director, it wasn't even so much

00:07:59.000 that I was imagining a different future, it was more like this current present isn't,

00:08:04.800 something is off, something is not right, and everything I've been taught since growing

00:08:08.620 up is, if something's not right, you fix it or you say something about it, but you don't

00:08:12.380 sit around and do nothing.

00:08:14.480 As a grad student in the Media Lab, Ottawa published a piece in the Tech, MIT's student

00:08:19.520 publication, about the university's connection to Jeffrey Epstein.

00:08:23.020 In it, she called for the resignation of Joy Ito, the head of the MIT Media Lab.

00:08:28.120 Her piece ran weeks before Ronan Farrow would go on to echo her points in his New Yorker

00:08:31.760 expose on September 7th.

00:08:33.700 The only difference is, Ottawa called for Ito to resign.

00:08:36.700 And after Farrow's piece was published, he actually did.

00:08:39.720 Did you ever feel like people have an easier time taking the situation seriously when it's

00:08:44.100 reported by a white man?

00:08:45.920 I mean, yeah, for sure.

00:08:47.840 and i appreciate ronan farrow's work a lot and we actually got to meet him and we kind of talked

00:08:53.880 about this but you know senior swenson she was the real hero of the story i mean she was the

00:08:59.220 actual whistleblower and sometimes people treat me like i was a whistleblower when i didn't

00:09:03.980 whistleblow anything i just had the same information that everybody else had and

00:09:07.980 sort of said my opinion about it and for sure i mean even on the comments on my article like

00:09:14.580 there were so many comments that had to do with my race and ethnicity and where i'm from as opposed

00:09:20.300 to you know not agreeing with me and my ideas it was very much like well you're not from america

00:09:25.760 you don't know what we're talking about and then ronan farrow writes this article and of course

00:09:30.320 everyone just jumped ship and you know i totally understood my director resigning after that i was

00:09:38.320 just more shocked of how many people said, oh, we were wrong after the article. Because to me,

00:09:45.820 it's kind of like we already had that information beforehand. And people had made up those

00:09:51.300 decisions, their decision to support him at that point. And it's only when a powerful,

00:09:56.320 and not just white man, but a powerful white man writes about it, that it's enough to sort of sway

00:10:01.920 people's opinions or feelings, or at least their vocal ones. So I heard an NPR interview where you

00:10:06.900 described your meeting with Ido, where he basically said, I agree with all the things that you're

00:10:11.300 saying, all the things that you say I did, I totally did, you're completely right, except

00:10:15.620 I don't think I should lose my job over it. Yeah. And there were a lot of people who felt that way.

00:10:21.280 And a lot of people still feel that way, because he kind of was the heart of the Media Lab. And a

00:10:27.320 lot of people depended on him for their projects, for funding, for, you know, other people were

00:10:32.460 coming into the Media Lab for the first time under his leadership.

00:10:36.540 So it makes sense that some people feel that way.

00:10:40.100 I think the Ronan Farrow thing was interesting because we had that conversation one afternoon

00:10:48.360 and then it was that same afternoon that Ronan Farrow's article dropped.

00:10:52.740 So between our meeting and him resigning was maybe four to five hours, like really not much.

00:10:57.860 yeah um so you know it was it was overall like really shocking but to me that's again a power

00:11:05.100 thing it's totally different situation if one first year master student who you know has no

00:11:11.820 power whatsoever says you should resign and it's a totally different thing if ronan farrow comes

00:11:17.980 after you and he had he has a lot of on stake it's not just his job at the media lab he has a lot of

00:11:24.480 venture capital and a lot of other endeavors that I think must have been in his head to protect.

00:11:29.820 But yeah, I mean, I don't know what it was that made him cave in at that moment.

00:11:34.420 It's easy to think about marginalized people who speak up in these situations as being fearless.

00:11:39.000 But Ottawa actually remembers being pretty scared and doing it anyway.

00:11:42.980 She drew strength from the courage of other women and girls on the continent.

00:11:47.260 The fear I was feeling was actually from my mom, because she didn't want me to write the article.

00:11:53.000 and I don't like disagreeing with my mom but we just did on this particular issue and she was

00:11:59.580 coming from a perspective of fear or trying to take care of her baby that she sent to America

00:12:04.100 to study like you know that she was scared that something might happen to my degree or that I

00:12:10.140 might lose my visa or something and not be able to finish but I don't know I didn't have that fear so

00:12:15.800 much and I just happened to be reading a really amazing book called Beneath the Tamaroon Tree

00:12:21.660 which is by Isha Sese of CNN about the Boko Haram bring back our girls story in Nigeria

00:12:30.360 and the amount of courage there was so wild that it just so happened that this is all happening at

00:12:38.580 the same time and I'm seeing myself as such a small player and seeing the thing that I want to

00:12:44.220 do is not that big compared to some of the things that these girls went through and some of the 0.87

00:12:49.560 things that they fought for against literal terrorists. And I was like, okay, if they have 0.97

00:12:55.720 this kind of courage to stand with a gun to their face and not change their religion because it's

00:13:01.320 what they believe in, then if I believe in this thing, then the least I can do is say it with my

00:13:08.700 chest. So that was how I was feeling. So I was actually feeling kind of empowered, inspired

00:13:16.480 while I was writing it.

00:13:18.120 I sometimes describe myself as a radical feminist,

00:13:20.620 but there's nothing radical about it.

00:13:21.980 It's just that the word feminist

00:13:24.200 sometimes seems radical to people.

00:13:26.600 But I just am a product of so many amazing women

00:13:30.200 that it's not shocking that I search

00:13:33.200 for even more inspiration from other women

00:13:35.220 on the continent or on the world.

00:13:39.820 After her letter calling for Ito to resign was published,

00:13:42.760 things got rough for Ottawa.

00:13:44.580 So what was the climate like for you at MIT after you published your piece? 0.97

00:13:50.760 It sucked.

00:13:52.800 I mean, the very next day or the day after I published this article, 0.86

00:13:57.420 like a website comes out saying we support True Retail.

00:14:00.300 And it's signed by like, you know, pretty much like every professor at the media lab.

00:14:06.600 And it's signed by all my colleagues and all these people.

00:14:10.980 And it's a direct response to my one article.

00:14:13.700 And so, you know, it wasn't nice. I was getting, you know, some not nice comments, but I was able to ignore most of them and, and feel okay. But it really highlighted to me how fearful people can get when you speak the truth or when you say your own truth.

00:14:28.840 because for me a whole website springing up with like it's signed with all these hundreds of names

00:14:36.220 just because one student wrote an article is shocking to me and that student has no power

00:14:44.740 like I don't know why there was so much fear or so much anger or so much defense

00:14:48.660 because nobody else there was lots of articles about it there was lots of articles that were

00:14:54.880 very non-partisan and saying what happened but nobody asked for him to be resigned to resign

00:15:01.380 except me and it's almost as if like that one statement or that one article like was like a

00:15:09.400 wave through the media lab and everyone was like pushing back as if what I said might sort of break

00:15:14.440 the whole media lab or make it fall apart and some people till today think it's my fault like

00:15:21.100 for sure. And, you know, there's nothing I can do about that. And I'm not going to sort of try

00:15:26.600 to pander to those people. But I don't know, it just showed me, it really taught me the power of

00:15:30.900 words. We'll be right back after this quick break. Behind every night spent making the kids lunches,

00:15:41.920 there's a lot of suspense. Will they finally eat the veggies? Will the pesto survive the first

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00:16:38.760 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:16:45.180 This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters,

00:16:51.320 pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island deserve the same level of discourse.

00:16:57.360 I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

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00:17:35.560 you get your podcasts see you between the pages when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held

00:17:42.940 captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what

00:17:49.420 should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember

00:17:55.760 this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything every week i'm with

00:18:04.620 survivors who lived through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going

00:18:11.460 to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and I just started

00:18:18.140 screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories

00:18:24.880 about what's taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive.

00:18:30.220 Listen to The Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:18:41.780 And we're back.

00:18:43.580 By establishing financial relationships with respected organizations like MIT, Epstein got powerful people, mostly men, to provide cover, protection, and most importantly, reputational redemption.

00:18:55.540 Once you've got the protection of that kind of power, it can be hard to penetrate.

00:19:00.220 Power. Powerful friends. Powerful names. Powerful money.

00:19:05.200 All of it makes it harder for people who exist outside of that power to speak out about bad behavior.

00:19:10.480 Why do you think the Media Lab overlooked Epstein's crimes?

00:19:14.300 Do you think it was just the money and they didn't care where it came from?

00:19:17.240 Or do you think it was something else?

00:19:19.480 I know that some people knew and some people didn't know.

00:19:22.240 So I can really only speak for the person that I know for sure knew, which is Joey.

00:19:27.260 and the rest I don't know and you know he he wielded a lot of power in this lab we do know

00:19:35.160 for a fact that there were people who who including my advisor Ethan Zuckerman who spoke out and said

00:19:41.420 that this was not a good idea and said that we shouldn't take money from Epstein and they were

00:19:46.600 ignored. I mean, the hard cold truth is that money is power. And there is a massive incentive

00:19:57.000 to ignore certain problems or ethics if you're going to get power by ignoring them. I think

00:20:04.120 the other thing to remember with the Epstein situation is that he wasn't giving the media

00:20:08.200 that much money anyway. I think a lot of the money that was, an MIT report just came out on the

00:20:15.460 funding issue and we found out that joey was actually trying to secure a much bigger pot of

00:20:19.720 funding for his own venture capital funds um so the huge incentive to ignore what was sort of

00:20:29.040 on the surface um and then the other thing is just i don't think men get it all the time

00:20:36.080 like i don't think i sometimes i really think that some people thought that it's just not that

00:20:41.480 bigger deal, because they have no understanding on what that relationship, even in and of itself,

00:20:48.620 but without money, means for the victims of Epstein's. They have no idea how this consolidation

00:20:53.980 of power represses the victims and silences them. It almost sounds like Epstein was trying to use

00:21:00.940 his money to kind of create this cover so that if anybody ever tried to call him out on his actions,

00:21:05.780 he could just be like, oh, well, look at all these powerful, influential men I surround myself with.

00:21:10.400 in some ways was really smart because he didn't actually have that much money. He wasn't a Bill

00:21:16.840 Gates, but had enough to sort of know the right people and actually build a social circle around

00:21:23.860 himself that included politicians, scientists, artists, businessmen. And it was so strong that

00:21:32.900 everybody wanted to be a part of it. And it was Epstein's name that you had to know to get sort

00:21:39.780 of in that circle. Ottawa still thinks highly of MIT, but the backlash she faced for speaking out

00:21:45.920 against Joy Ito showed her that things are not always as shiny as they look from the outside.

00:21:50.620 I think the Media Lab, you know, it's hard because I love this place. Like I've had

00:21:55.900 a fantastic two years. I've learned so much. I've grown so much and I wouldn't change it for

00:22:02.320 anything. But I think this experience has just been such an example of that because it's so

00:22:08.520 shiny on the outside like it's so glamorous everyone wants to be here but that doesn't

00:22:14.460 that doesn't mean that we don't have issues institutional issues of power and race and class

00:22:19.420 and all these other things that might make the play sound not so amazing do you think that there

00:22:24.760 should be more scrutiny on other powerful men who had like financial entanglements with epstein i

00:22:29.540 feel like a lot of them have sort of been able to skirt public scrutiny and like public question

00:22:35.880 asking about what what exactly their dealings with this person were oh yeah for sure yeah I think

00:22:41.920 you know from the out I mean because I can't speak for much more than MIT but I know you know

00:22:48.380 even Harvard had relations with took a lot of money from Epstein but they just declined to

00:22:53.020 even talk about it and so it just they sort of took the mom path and everyone forgot about it

00:23:01.300 Whereas at MIT, it was so widely talked about.

00:23:05.240 And Epstein's network is so extensive that going through every single man who interacted with him or woman for that matter, actually, who interacted with him and took money from him and what they knew and how they knew it is extremely difficult.

00:23:23.020 So I don't know how to do that.

00:23:25.200 But there should be a way larger conversation around these networks of power, whether we isolate individuals within them or not. And I think that also has a lot to do with who's willing to speak, who's willing to come forward with information, because when we don't know anything, all we can do is speculate and they have power and that doesn't really work.

00:23:48.940 So, yeah, I don't know.

00:23:50.000 I feel like everyone should be held accountable for sure.

00:23:52.240 But it's, I don't even know where you start with Epstein.

00:23:56.820 You know, I almost wonder if this is part of a deliberate strategy of Epstein's,

00:24:00.300 getting his money in so many powerful places and hands and institutions

00:24:03.580 that untangling it almost seems kind of impossible.

00:24:06.580 Yeah.

00:24:07.400 And I'm a firm believer of nothing is impossible.

00:24:10.480 But, you know, there's such a close link.

00:24:13.080 And I'm not saying that anyone who took his money did anything more than that.

00:24:17.040 But there is, you know, especially with the people who are closer with him, there is a link with those people and victims, you know, and I think right now, what needs to happen is that the victims 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. This is how I'm feeling. This is what I need to recover. And sort of, if they feel up for it, these are the people who hurt me beyond Epstein.

00:24:45.660 It's hard to admit that people and institutions that mean a lot to us are actually fostering abusive behavior.

00:24:52.660 Joy 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.

00:25:01.080 joey himself was a figure of so much awe and inspiration and resource to the media lab students

00:25:11.420 that and faculty that people didn't want to believe that you know he had done this thing

00:25:18.760 that they didn't agree with and it was much easier if we just said okay hash hash let's

00:25:22.680 sweep it under the rug and move on and pretend like this never happened and so i understand that

00:25:26.900 to some degree but you know the world is like constantly changing and I think if you're sort of

00:25:33.280 always that person on the bottom of the ladder in certain societies like it's always it always

00:25:38.920 comes from the bottom up like it's always that change in institution is never going to happen

00:25:44.040 by the people who for who the institution is working and the media lab was working for me

00:25:50.940 it wasn't you know I was having a great time but I didn't have the same feelings about the director

00:25:56.660 that most of my naysayers had you know like I wasn't actually giving up I don't know funding

00:26:04.340 for a specific project by calling him out so in other ways it was easier for me than I you know

00:26:10.980 I get why it was easier for me than other people but for a place that calls itself the future

00:26:17.260 factory for a place that prides itself in imagining and creating the future literally

00:26:23.140 like the standard has got to be higher and it's got to be higher not from a tech perspective but

00:26:29.220 from a human perspective too and so this is where it starts to look like the academy awards so

00:26:34.760 first i want to invite up the winners of the 250 000 disobedience award the second largest

00:26:42.460 cast prize at mit i would say after the lemelson award for innovation i'm so tarana burke and

00:26:48.160 With this award, we are recognizing their leadership and dedication in amplifying the

00:26:57.620 voices of survivors of sexual violence and harassment, fomenting positive change towards

00:27:02.020 gender equality, and demonstrating defiance in the face of oppression and apathy.

00:27:06.440 Thank you very much.

00:27:07.800 In 2017, MIT started the Disobedience Award, a yearly award given to people in tech who

00:27:13.560 speak truth to power.

00:27:14.540 The award came with a $250,000, no-strings-attached prize.

00:27:19.500 In 2018, it was awarded to MeToo creator Tarana Burke, Beth Ann McLaughlin, and Shara Martz as representatives of MeToo and the MeToo in STEM movement that highlighted people speaking up against sexual harassment in technology.

00:27:32.180 The physical award is a glass orb.

00:27:34.940 And in a particularly disgusting piece of irony,

00:27:37.440 because of his financial contributions to MIT, 0.76

00:27:39.940 convicted sex offender and serial predator Epstein

00:27:42.360 received a replica of that very award that same year, too.

00:27:46.500 I know you're infuriated now,

00:27:48.800 but this is where the story gets a little bit brighter.

00:27:51.660 My friend Sabrina Hersey-Isa is the kind of person

00:27:53.780 I hope that you all have in your lives.

00:27:56.020 Mantor doesn't really cover just how impactful she's been in my own life.

00:28:00.120 She's a human rights technologist,

00:28:01.260 and the founder of Be Bold Media.

00:28:03.100 And Sabrina has never stopped uplifting other women

00:28:05.400 or speaking truth to power, 1.00

00:28:06.860 even when she gets shit for it. 0.98

00:28:09.180 Sabrina had never spoken to Ottawa, 0.99

00:28:11.080 but she did read her story.

00:28:13.120 A friend of mine sent me a link to Ottawa's op-ed

00:28:16.360 in the MIT student newspaper.

00:28:19.880 And when I read it, I thought it was so,

00:28:22.660 at first I thought this was so beautifully written.

00:28:25.440 And it was written from a place of love

00:28:27.480 and leadership.

00:28:30.140 and from clearly this was a voice of someone who cares deeply not just for women and children but

00:28:37.340 also for a community then I saw the arc of how her op-ed was being received in the MIT community

00:28:45.700 and in the broader technology community and that is when things started to not sit well with me

00:28:50.680 in our in Bridget our shared women in technology community I saw Ottawa's op-ed being received as

00:28:59.220 like, this is a brave call for a student. But it also, I saw a lot of echoing of helplessness

00:29:06.100 from very powerful women in technology, and a lot of wringing of hands, and a lot of,

00:29:13.300 oh, what do we do now? Or I feel hopeless. And when I read Ottawa's op-ed, I felt the opposite

00:29:19.420 of hopeless. I felt hope. I felt, oh, if this is what someone could say with so much to lose and

00:29:26.600 so much on the line, then anything is possible. And then I saw it absorbed in the broader public

00:29:33.060 conversation around Epstein and MIT. And I saw Ottawa's being demonized and being framed at her.

00:29:43.660 I saw Ottawa's public leadership being framed as a problem instead of a blessing. And I was not okay

00:29:53.680 watching that. I saw, you know, Reddit forums where people were like, if she doesn't like it,

00:29:58.340 she can go back to Africa. I saw a lot of hate being spewed on Twitter. I saw, so like the further

00:30:05.920 the rings of influence went out, the more I saw this woman's brave call of public leadership

00:30:12.700 being received, how most Black women who are moral, who practice moral courage in public spaces

00:30:21.060 being received. And I was not okay with that. And you know me and you know, I've walked through 0.99

00:30:28.740 fires in the past where that was the arc that played out. And I knew I could not in good

00:30:36.140 conscious say that, do nothing and be okay with that or say nothing and do it and be okay with

00:30:45.180 that. More There Are No Girls on the internet after this quick break. 1.00

00:30:51.060 Behind every night spent making the kids' lunches, there's a lot of suspense.

00:30:58.800 Will they finally eat the veggies?

00:31:00.300 Will the pesto survive the first bite?

00:31:02.340 Will the lunchbox come home empty, half full, or come home at all?

00:31:06.380 And will you finish Episode 8 before you're done slicing the cucumbers?

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00:31:54.340 if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality

00:31:58.140 welcome home this is prose society the weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat

00:32:05.660 for thought daughters pop culture obsessives and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and

00:32:09.900 love island deserve the same level of discourse i'm eli rallo and every week we're connecting

00:32:14.880 the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having.

00:32:19.880 I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed.

00:32:23.460 From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments,

00:32:28.320 nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling

00:32:34.440 characters, then that is a Trojan horse. Whether you're looking for literary deep dives,

00:32:39.160 smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much,

00:32:44.460 you're in the right place listen to pro society on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever

00:32:50.940 you get your podcasts see you between the pages when i was 14 years old i was kidnapped and held

00:32:58.340 captive for nine months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what

00:33:04.800 should have destroyed them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember

00:33:11.140 this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything every week i'm with

00:33:20.000 survivors who live through the unthinkable i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt

00:33:27.300 i started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming they

00:33:35.260 are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's

00:33:41.020 taken from them. They're stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the

00:33:46.860 Survivor Files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

00:33:52.900 get your podcasts. And we're back. Even though they had never met, Sabrina was inspired by Ottawa's

00:34:02.740 actions at MIT. She remembered all the times in her own career that she spoke out against sexism

00:34:07.320 and racism and got vitriol for it. Speaking out takes guts and leadership, and Sabrina couldn't 0.93

00:34:12.980 rewatch the pattern of a woman without institutional power behind her being criticized for daring to

00:34:17.540 speak up for what's right, even as Ronan Farrow was praised for doing the exact same thing.

00:34:22.720 And while his reporting was a big part of why Ido stepped down, it wasn't Farrow who was risking

00:34:27.340 his personal safety by speaking up. It was Ottawa. The thing about this that really struck me was

00:34:32.560 Not just the vulnerability of her visibility, like when she did step up and speak out and say something, she was met with not even no support, but with a lot of hatred and anger.

00:34:46.960 But the invisibility of her leadership when a white guy says the same thing that she said, and he's not even a part of the MIT community.

00:34:58.060 His safety, Ronan Farrell's safety was never in question.

00:35:02.560 And I wasn't okay with watching yet another pattern of someone outside of a community and institution with prestige be validated as a legitimate voice.

00:35:15.680 I didn't want my silence to be complicit in continuing that pattern. 0.82

00:35:23.080 Sabrina thought that Ottawa should get some kind of recognition for her actions at MIT. 0.94

00:35:27.080 That's when Sabrina got the idea for the bold prize. 0.96

00:35:29.340 MIT has this thing called the Disobedience Prize. It is a $250,000 cash award, no strings attached, given to social change leaders who speak truth to power and practice moral leadership and ethics.

00:35:45.360 And I thought MIT has no right to say what ethical leadership looks like if they are letting this man stay in this role, if they're letting this happen to young black women in their community.

00:36:00.840 So I was like, hey, I have a voice and I have power and I can do something and I can say something.

00:36:08.220 I wanted this young woman to know that I see her.

00:36:10.580 So, and then I was like, you know what? Why don't I give you an award? So I said, would it be okay if I crowdfunded a leadership prize for you? And she was like, that would be really sweet. Thank you so much.

00:36:23.220 I wrote a letter that you see on bullpriced.com where I said that, you know, I do not know her, but I admire her courage and that I wasn't OK watching a young black woman speak up and lead with courage and and not only not be seen, but also be harmed for it.

00:36:48.100 I think if we need to, there's the world as it is, and the world as it should be. And if we want to build the world as it should be, then we need to reframe what leadership looks like so that when these events happen, people like Ottawa are not seen as the bad actors, they're seen as the future. And they're seen as world builders.

00:37:08.620 So I wanted to use my voice and my power and my relationships and resources to shift the conversation from blame to leadership, from the world as it is to the world that it should be, and that it is not just her right to speak out to protect women in her community, but also it's within all of our abilities to speak out and do the same thing.

00:37:34.680 The other piece that I was that did not sit well with me was watching really powerful people that we both know, not recognize their own power and agency. So I want I believe in the power of invitation. And 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. So I decided to create it.

00:38:01.480 we are going to refashion the disobedience prize

00:38:05.040 and we're going to make it the bold prize.

00:38:07.080 And I called it the bold prize for three specific reasons.

00:38:11.540 One, when Ethan Zuckerman first announced his thing,

00:38:14.760 that's when I was like, someone should give him an award.

00:38:16.840 The second thing in Ottawa's piece,

00:38:19.660 she uses the phrase, I stand by my advisor.

00:38:24.000 It's Ethan Zuckerman's her advisor.

00:38:25.700 She wrote, I stand by my advisor

00:38:27.240 and his bold decision to step down.

00:38:29.000 And I was like, oh, that word bold.

00:38:30.280 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.

00:38:42.380 And I thought to myself, yeah, you know, I am bold and maybe this wouldn't be so hard if more people were.

00:38:48.500 MIT's Media Lab is called the Future Factory, but do we even want a future designed by powerful

00:38:59.560 people that would look the other way when it comes to abuse? What kind of future would that

00:39:03.620 leave us with? The choices that MIT made to enable Epstein and be complicit in covering

00:39:13.840 for a sexual predator those were deliberate decisions and choice that were made outside of a

00:39:21.880 moral compass and so to somehow envelope that into like they get to be leaders on what ethics look

00:39:33.900 like and not only just what ethics look like but what the future can be it can be in a whole

00:39:38.400 I don't want a future imagined by people who participate in systems like this.

00:39:45.180 So I want to build a future with leaders like Ottawa who not only make choices to do the hard,

00:39:55.180 see something hard and do it anyway, but are willing to absorb the blowback that comes with it

00:40:00.860 because it's the right thing to do.

00:40:03.440 Through crowdfunding, Sabrina raised over $40,000 for Ottawa

00:40:06.760 as the inaugural recipient of the Bold Prize.

00:40:09.400 The average donation was $75.

00:40:14.020 I was just so in awe.

00:40:15.420 I was like, oh my God, thank you so much.

00:40:17.060 But not just because, I mean, this was a stranger

00:40:20.280 and not just any share, she was a black woman as well

00:40:23.400 and had just somehow like seen my pain from far away

00:40:27.580 or seen the struggle and was like,

00:40:29.680 I need to do something for this woman.

00:40:32.100 And so that was the true like prize for me.

00:40:34.340 It was like how many people came together

00:40:36.000 to support my voice when I had felt for a long time

00:40:39.320 that I was on the outside of things.

00:40:42.100 I feel just for journalistic integrity purposes,

00:40:44.400 I should say, I'm one of the fun,

00:40:45.820 I'm one of the donators of that.

00:40:47.500 Oh, really? Oh, thank you.

00:40:48.740 You know, I agree.

00:40:51.880 I thought the idea that Sabrina,

00:40:54.220 who has been a really powerful force in my own life,

00:40:56.980 just personally, would reach out to you like that,

00:41:00.360 I thought that was so beautiful.

00:41:01.580 And it really goes back to what you were saying

00:41:03.060 at the beginning of our interview

00:41:04.240 about sort of being lifted up by this community of Black women and lifting them up as well.

00:41:09.980 It is really special. And I think it was important for me, even though you and I had never met,

00:41:17.520 it was important for me to let you know that people out there had your back. We were rooting

00:41:22.320 for you, watching what you were doing. Your bravery and your courage reverberates. You never

00:41:32.400 know you never know who is going to be seeing what you did and that's going to be the reason

00:41:37.860 why they speak up thank you yeah I I think that's also been another like big thing that I've gained

00:41:46.440 is you just never know whose life you're going to touch or who's who like where your words will

00:41:53.100 reach and there's been so many like random people who were you know saying what you're saying like

00:41:58.780 oh you gave me the courage to do this or you gave me the courage to write this and to say this and

00:42:03.600 whatever and i've been like okay like this can be a movement like the bold prize can be a movement

00:42:08.580 like it can be something that people aspire to get i didn't have a vendetta against joey like

00:42:15.380 personally either so it wasn't like i want him fired or to resign and would only be happy once

00:42:23.000 that happened, because clearly this issue was deeply structural within MIT as well. So I felt

00:42:29.540 vindicated after, like maybe, you know, time after when, you know, with the bowl prize and

00:42:36.220 with the letters of support and, you know, by people encouraging me to like keep speaking my

00:42:41.720 mind. But we still have so much work to do, like as a institution here.

00:42:47.340 What's your advice for other women about speaking truth to power, even when it's tough?

00:42:51.560 the first is i really think it is a lonely process and it isn't easy i've you know i learned that

00:42:57.280 firsthand and i think i just like sound like kind of mythical but i think drawing power from others

00:43:06.080 before you do what you need to do is so important because you're gonna need so much energy to keep

00:43:12.920 going and to like not backtrack in what you said because people don't agree with you um and so like

00:43:20.680 if that's reading or if that's talking to actual people or if that's listening to Lizzo,

00:43:27.160 like literally drawing power from other women in history and time because there's so many

00:43:32.360 who have done the thing that you want to do is so important and gives you stamina. 1.00

00:43:38.220 Institutions like MIT are powerful, but so are women.

00:43:41.740 So is community. 0.99

00:43:43.120 Women being in community with each other and lifting each other up and inspiring each other 1.00

00:43:47.280 to speak our truths, well, that's powerful enough to create new systems. 0.99

00:43:50.680 And women can envision bolder futures and brighter realities when we come together.

00:43:56.440 There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd.

00:43:59.680 It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

00:44:02.440 Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer.

00:44:04.500 Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer.

00:44:07.020 Michael Amato is our contributing producer.

00:44:09.000 I'm your host, Bridget Todd.

00:44:10.580 For more podcasts from iHeart, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

00:44:20.680 if your bookshelf and your for you page are equally important to your personality

00:44:32.560 welcome home pro society is a weekly podcast that's part book club part group chat for anyone

00:44:38.780 who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse each week

00:44:43.300 we're connecting the dots between books the internet and pop culture with your favorite

00:44:47.340 writers, book talk creators, and plenty of overthought opinions. Yeah, I'm obsessed. I'm

00:44:52.340 obsessed. Listen to Pro Society on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

00:44:57.720 podcasts. I survived nine months in captivity, and I've spent my life exploring how other people

00:45:05.060 survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart, and these are the Survivor

00:45:10.360 Files. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable, abducted, stalked,

00:45:16.380 controlled and nearly silenced these are stories about what it takes to make it out alive listen

00:45:22.920 to the survivor files with elizabeth smart on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get

00:45:29.460 your podcasts hey this is hayes davenport and sean clemens we host the podcast hollywood handbook

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - July 07, 2020

Jeffrery Epstein, MIT and the Grad Student Who Spoke Up

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Transcript