How Harvard Laundered A Child Molester’s Reputation

How the sausage is made among our overcompensated and underachieving elites:

Jeffrey Epstein’s millions earned him special treatment at Harvard: He had a personal office among university researchers, a dedicated phone line, an unusual visiting fellowship position, and the backing of several high-level faculty who urged administrators to take the financier’s money despite his record as a registered sex offender.

In a report released on Friday, Harvard outlined these extensive ties with the notorious Epstein, detailing a relationship that spanned more than 25 years.

Epstein died by an apparent suicide last summer in a Manhattan jail where he was being held on charges of sex trafficking of minors, but his close relationships and financial support of scientists and academics continue to rock higher-education institutions such as Harvard and MIT.

According to a months-long investigation by Harvard’s general counsel and an outside law firm, the university received $9.2 million from Epstein between 1998 and 2007. After Epstein’s 2008 sex conviction, Harvard’s then-president Drew Gilpin Faust barred any more donations from the financier. Still, Faust’s decision wasn’t clear to some faculty and fund-raisers within Harvard who continued to lobby administrators over the years to take money from Epstein.

In a message to the community, Harvard president Lawrence Bacow said that the university will review gaps in its controversial gifts policies.

“The report issued today describes principled decision-making but also reveals institutional and individual shortcomings that must be addressed — not only for the sake of the University but also in recognition of the courageous individuals who sought to bring Epstein to justice,” Bacow said in a message to the Harvard community.

On Friday, Harvard also announced that it had placed Martin Nowak, a biology and math professor and director of Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, on paid administrative leave over his ties to Epstein and potential violations of the university’s security and grant funding policies.

[…]

n the program’s building, space was scarce, but Office 610 was known as “Jeffrey’s Office” and Epstein decorated it with his own rug and photographs. For a time, Epstein even had his own Harvard phone line, according to the report.

He visited there more than 40 times after he was released from jail in 2010 up until 2018, routinely with young women who acted as his assistants. Despite no official connection with Harvard, Epstein was given key cards to enter the building and office.

Nowak allowed Epstein to use the group’s offices to host dinners and meet with Harvard faculty, area academics, and political figures when he was in town, according to the report.

The thing about all of these corrupt relationships is that unlike an increasing number of schools who are likely to face dilemmas about people of various degrees of shadiness who can help them keep the lights on and the Associate Vice Deans of Proactive Strategic Development employed, Harvard actually has fuck-you money. It doesn’t need Charles Kushner’s donation, which was piddlyshit in the context of its annual outlays. It let him buy his idiot son a degree because it wanted to. It’s like corruption as a matter of principle.