Rep. Ro Khanna says Dartmouth students upset over Leon Black building

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who is among lawmakers leading calls for accountability and the release of Jeffrey Epstein-related files, said Sunday that students at Ivy League university Dartmouth College are upset over a building named for Leon Black.

Dartmouth in 2012 named its visual arts center in honor of Black, the former chairman of the Museum of Modern Art who graduated from the university in 1973, who donated $48 million with his wife, Debra, toward its construction, the university announced at the time.

Black was extensively named in recent Epstein files released by the U.S. Justice Department, including explicit details of the alleged sexual abuse of at least three women, one of whom was a minor, as Urgent Matter first reported.

“I’m here at Dartmouth where I did a student town hall on A.I., the war in Iran and on the Epstein files. A number of students came up to me afterwards upset that the university still has a building named after Leon Black,” Khanna said in a video posted to Facebook.

“I’ve said we need to hold the Epstein class accountable. Leon Black is all over the Epstein files with very serious allegations. It’s time to hold these men responsible.”

Scrutiny into Black’s ties to Epstein first surfaced in July 2019, after Epstein was arrested and hit with sex trafficking charges. Epstein had previously pleaded guilty to two charges of soliciting prostitution, one involving a minor, in Florida a decade earlier.

In 2021, Black resigned from his private-equity firm, Apollo Global Management, after an investigation found he paid Epstein about $158 million between 2012 and 2017 for tax and estate planning advice. That same year, he also stepped down as MoMA chairman but remains listed as a trustee of the museum.

Black later paid $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands to settle Epstein-related claims.

Amid fallout from the latest release from the Justice Department’s Epstein files, British multidisciplinary artist Tai Shani withdrew from her book deal with Phaidon, which Black has owned since 2012.

The backlash over the Black Family Visual Arts Center at Dartmouth comes as the students at Harvard University called on administrators to remove the name of another Epstein acquaintance, Les Wexner, from the school’s main building.

“To me, it feels borderline dystopian to walk in through the main entrance of the Leslie H. Wexner Building,” Ana-Sofia Gonzalez, a second-year master’s student, told the Harvard Crimson.

Last month, Wexner, the billionaire art collector and founder of Victoria's Secret parent company L Brands, sat for a nearly five-hour deposition with lawmakers about his ties to Epstein behind closed doors.

"I was conned by the world-Olympic, all-time con artist," Wexner said in his deposition. "I read in the news all the people he knew, royalty, kings and princes, and all that. An incredible con artist."

In other recent Epstein-related news, the art collector Ronald Lauder, who is also listed as a MoMA trustee, was first reported by Art News to have appeared more than 900 times in the Justice Department’s Epstein files and appears to have met with the convicted sex offender multiple times in 2017.

The files, confirmed by Urgent Matter, did not include direct emails or messages between Lauder and Epstein but showed their assistants arranging meetings and calls between them. Lauder has not been accused of any criminal conduct.

And the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize has responded after the files surfaced associations between Epstein and Tom Pritzker, the director of the foundation that awards the honor. Pritzker, the son of the prize’s namesake, Jay Pritzker, resigned as executive chairman of Hyatt Hotels Corporation after the files were released.

The Hyatt Foundation, in a statement to The New York Times, emphasized the jury’s independence in awarding the prize.

“The jury, composed of internationally respected professionals from a range of disciplines, has always and will continue to conduct its work confidentially and free from external influence,” the foundation said.

Like with Lauder, the emails showed arrangements for meetings between Epstein and Prizker but did not include any criminal allegations or complaints of wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, Bard College in New York announced it has launched an “independent review” of ties between its president, Leon Botstein, and Epstein. Botstein was named nearly 3,000 times in the Epstein files, a review by Urgent Matter shows.

Emails and records in the files show Botstein planned travel with Leon Black and his family to Epstein’s private island Little St. James in 2012, after Epstein’s 2008 conviction. He has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing.

“The Blacks and their family hosted President Botstein and guests, including Epstein, for a dinner on the Black family boat,” Botstein’s spokesperson David Wade said in an emailed statement to the Albany Times-Union. Wade told the newspaper that the trip “resulted in a one-time generous contribution from the Black family to Bard.”

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