A prominent Harvard Law School professor sued The
New York Times on Monday, claiming it engaged in "clickbait defamation" by falsely suggesting he once approved of accepting donations from the late accused sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Lawrence Lessig said the Times published an article headlined "A Harvard Professor Doubles Down: If You Take Epstein's Money, Do It In Secret" last Sept. 14 with reckless disregard for its truth.
The Times article was published six days after Lessig wrote an essay on Medium supporting his friend Joichi Ito, who resigned as director of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after accepting donations from Epstein.