The Pisters Effect
By
Leonard Zwelling
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/opinion/e-jean-carroll-documentary-trump.html
Filmmaker Ivy Meeropol writes in The New York Times of May 21 about the Trump Effect. Here’s how her story goes.
She decided in 2019 to make a film about E. Jean Carroll a journalist who sued Donald Trump while he was in the White House for sexual assault in a Bergdorf Goodman’s dressing room. Mr. Trump denied this ever happened or that he ever knew her. She obviously angered Mr. Trump. As we all know, when you cross Mr. Trump, he will come after you any way that he can.
This case went to trial in 2023 and a jury found “Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation.” Carroll was awarded $5 million.
In response, Mr. Trump got on CNN and continued to make fun of Ms. Carroll.
Carroll amended her defamation suit and a new trial was started in 2024. Mr. Trump used Truth Social to continue to attack Ms. Carroll. She won again, this time for $83 million.
As all this was occurring, Ms. Meeropol was making a film about Ms. Carroll. Suddenly the film was in jeopardy of not being completed. Song rights were lost. Crew members with green cards removed their names from the film’s credits. The distribution deal for the film collapsed. You may remember the film about a young Donald Trump and his relationship with Roy Cohn called The Apprentice also had a hard time making it to theaters and TV screens. (It is terrific, by the way.) The Apprentice finally made it to movie theaters and streaming video through an independent distributor and Ms. Meeropol’s film will, too, also through independent backing. Clearly pressure was being placed on the system to stop the film’s distribution.
The trouble getting these films made and distributed was because they involve negative views of Donald Trump. Meeropol calls this the Trump Effect. It is the fear that permeates a society because of likely reprisals from a despotic and powerful leader. Of course, in this case, there is a lot of what caused the “Me Too” movement involved, since the charge in Carroll’s case against Trump was sexual assault. When dominating power stops the artistic or scientific process, that is bad for society.
Is this happening at MD Anderson as well? You better believe it.
I am personally aware of instances of people I know who should know better, knuckling under to poor upper echelon leaders so as not to ruffle any feathers at the top of the MD Anderson food chain. Vice presidents, Department chairs, and Division Heads will do anything to keep their jobs and their ridiculously high salaries including undermining the research program of young faculty, firing incredibly talented clinicians because they were “unprofessional,” and even going to court and obtaining an official decision of “sovereign immunity” from the consequences of bad behavior by faculty leaders on the job for the UT System. And all of this is occurring in an atmosphere of fear promulgated by the president of the institution who has the highest salary of all by a factor of at least three and demands fealty from anyone who sits at his table.
This is nonsense at an academic institution which can only thrive in an environment of open and collegial discussion and the right to oppose presidentially declared policies without fear of reprisal. That was the role of the late-Faculty Senate a replacement for which has never been convened.
I would suggest yet again that the Board of Regents hire an outside consultant to thoroughly and in a non-punitive fashion examine whether or not the leadership of MD Anderson is adhering to the values of academia and its own mission statement. I believe that the leadership has so strayed from creating a productive environment for academic inquiry and simple justice that nothing short of a complete leadership turnover will get the place back on the right track.
And if I am wrong, and MD Anderson is a healthy place for faculty to grow and discover, then this outside consultant will prove that to be the case and I will apologize. In fact, I will apologize right now if I have offended any MD Anderson leaders who are trying to buck the trend and nurture scientific inquiry in laboratories or the clinic.
It is incredibly important that the outside consultant be paid with UT dollars that are unassociated with MD Anderson. There can be no conflict of interest as is so often the case at Anderson, for example, when an outside law firm paid by Anderson served as the Research Integrity Officer to adjudicate allegations of research misconduct. Where was the faculty Research Integrity Officer? I did that job for 12 years. There’s now a new faculty RIO appointed, but decisions by her seem to be bogged down in politics. How unfortunate!
If Pisters is so great, he has nothing to fear. But if he will not submit to such a thorough investigation, the Board of Regents ought to be concerned. Of course, it is hard to know what the Board of Regents cares about when it comes to MD Anderson. It may be only that the UT cancer center continues to make money and members of the Board of Regents can get access to MD Anderson care. I don’t know. Does anyone out there?
The Trump Effect and the Pisters Effect are both very real and scare the hell out of everyone within the orbit of these leaders. Heck, I’m really no longer in these orbits and they scare me. This is no way to run a country or a cancer center.
