Botstein Is Out

Escaping the taint of a past association with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is not easy, as Leon Botstein, the highly successful ex-president of Bard College, is discovering. When his relationship with Epstein garnered attention, he announced he would resign from the presidency at the end of June, despite an independent review by the school that found he had done nothing wrong. The review did raise concerns about his leadership, but the school saw no issue with him continuing on the faculty, remaining as artistic co-director of the Bard Music Festival and running The Orchestra Now graduate-level program. He also continued to live in the official college president’s home until a new off-campus home is renovated for his use—a reward for his half-century of  service to the college.

An article in the New York Times on October 7 detailed his continued connections to the school. That same day, a letter to Bard from Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking minority member of the House Judiciary Committee, prompted Botstein to resign from all his affiliations with the college. Raskin’s letter alleged that while president, Botstein had “likely enabled and possibly even participated in” Epstein’s abuse. The Maryland Democrat’s letter also questioned how sexual misconduct complaints on campus were handled during his administration.

Justice Department documents referenced by Raskin reveal that Botstein’s relationship with Epstein was closer than had been previously believed. The two exchanged visits and messages over several years, before and after the financier pled guilty to solicitation in Florida in 2008. Most damning is a May 2014 email sent from the Bard president’s email address inquiring if a woman Epstein may have been trafficking was “for me, or are you keeping her for yourself.”

Botstein issued a statement branding the letter’s allegations untrue and claiming he did not write the email. “Any assertion that I knew of or was involved in Epstein’s criminal behavior is wrong,” he said. “I am confident that any fair review would confirm these facts. But I do not want to see even false allegations… put the institution I have served for more than half a century at any risk.” Bard’s trustees unanimously accepted Botstein’s resignation from all of his Bard positions.

In a statement, Brandon Weber, the chair of the board of trustees, wrote that the college was “undertaking a full review of the allegations made in the House Judiciary Committee’s letter and cooperating with the committee’s investigation, as we have done from the outset.”

New York Times