Jeffrey Epstein Fallout

The article reports growing protests and formal campaigns at several U.S. universities to strip the names of wealthy donors who had close ties to Jeffrey Epstein from campus buildings. At Ohio State University, union nurses, former athletes and student leaders have mounted months of demonstrations and petitions to remove billionaire Les Wexner’s name from the Wexner Medical Center, the Les Wexner Football Complex and the Wexner Center for the Arts, arguing his philanthropy is tainted by Epstein’s deep involvement in his family’s finances. At Harvard, students and faculty at the Kennedy School are seeking to rename the Leslie H. Wexner Building and Wexner‑Sunshine Lobby, while some students and alumni want the Farkas name removed from Farkas Hall because donor Andrew Farkas maintained business and personal ties to Epstein and solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars in Epstein donations for Hasty Pudding. Haverford College students recently voted to urge President Wendy Raymond to move ahead with renaming the Allison & Howard Lutnick Library; Lutnick, now U.S. commerce secretary, has faced calls to resign over his Epstein relationship, and Raymond had previously signaled reluctance to act. Supporters of renaming say universities cannot credibly champion survivor rights and institutional accountability while honoring people in Epstein’s circle, while some donors insist they did nothing improper and regret any association — a clash that is feeding a broader national debate over how far schools should go in purging the names of controversial benefactors.