He's made multiple comments spread over many years that make it clear he disagrees with the core concept of statutory rape, by repeatedly invoking "consent" or "willingness" and similar.
The whole point of the concept is that there's no such thing as willingness or consent with minors, that the very nature of the act having taken place constitutes rape.
A statement like "there is little evidence to justify the widespread assumption that willing participation in pedophilia hurts children" means he's saying adults raping children is OK.
He literally wrote that on his blog. It's still there.[0]
I mean, what do you think is going to happen when you do stuff like that?
He definitely has a legal right to do it, and on that I'd defend him to the death. But he doesn't have a legal right to work at MIT or anywhere else that's not comfortable with a leader who says stuff like this.
The same article notes that two states, North Carolina and Alaska have a specified minimum age of 14, and 27 states lack any specific minimum age.
I'm not arguing that the low (or no) minimum age laws are right. I am pointing out that standards, and laws, within the US, and within the past few years, have included marriage, and presumably sexual relations, among minors.
That has been changing, but it's a change that's well within the lifetimes of many adults. Richard Stallman, aged 66, has lived through a period of pretty profound change around many of these norms. Again, not to excuse behaviour, but possibly to explain a possible basis for it.
Strong cultural shifts, should you have the pleasure of living through some yourself, are remarkable to witness and experience.
That leaders should ascribe to societal norms is not always a good outcome. If you want to have revolution, revolutionaries needs to be in place of power/leadership. A society needs to have a mechanism to have such revolutions, or stagnate.
