throwaway1918

He was not a professor. He quit his job at MIT (as some sort of staff researcher/programmer) in 1984 to start the GNU project. He was an unpaid visiting scientist and had an office, although he was rarely in it (he spends a lot of time traveling). He did not have any institutional power beyond his participation as a rando on the mailing lists.

The problem here is that your quotation is wrong or misleading. The words you omitted do matter and do change the sense of it. Here is the actual paragraph:

"We can imagine many scenarios, but the most plausible scenario is that she presented herself to him as entirely willing. Assuming she was being coerced by Epstein, he would have had every reason to tell her to conceal that from most of his associates."

Say what you will about the inappropriateness of RMS's conduct or speech or timing, but you should not try to persuade people by misquoting him.