Of course they might say taking Epstein's money was wrong after all it has no impact on them personally. Now if they were a college student and Epstein was paying for scholarships and they viewed that as a personal benefit to them they might be ok with it and look the other way. This is the way people are.
As far as taking money from a 'convicted sex offender' (the 'accused' makes zero difference and should) he did his crime and he served his time. He went through the criminal justice system. He should be given a 2nd chance. It's unclear to me why people are willing to give all sorts of criminal offenders 2nd chances but not for sex crimes. And make no mistake there are plenty of people who have committed crimes who have impacted far more people that nobody seems to care about that much after the fact and will allow a 2nd chance.
The article also doesn't say that him being told to shut up was net with applause, or anything like that.
And considering that slant in the article, if there was any hint more people agreed, you know it would be in there.
> Also important to realize that there were most likely people at that meeting that agreed with what Negroponte said but were to afraid (for fear of backlash) to say that.
While I agree with you that at times a small minority can shut down discussion, in this particular case I think an overwhelming majority of that audience believed that taking Epstein's money was unconscionable. So while there probably at least a few audience members who agreed with Negroponte, and while those who agreed were probably afraid to publicly voice their support, I'm doubtful there were actually that many of them.
But perhaps I'm wrong. Do you have a way of estimating what percentage of people believe that accepting money from a convicted sex offender (and accused pedophile) is ethically appropriate?