This morning, Dartmouth Student Government and the Student and Presidential Committee on Sexual Assault called on the Board of Trustees and College leadership to rename the Black Family Visual Arts Center. The SPCSA is an “intermediary between students and the larger Dartmouth College community” whose tasks include planning and implementing “cross-campus initiatives to address sexual violence.”
BVAC’s namesake Leon Black ’73 maintained a long-standing relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, outlined in files recently released by the Department of Justice.
“To celebrate Leon Black betrays our values and our students,” DSG and SPCSA wrote in an email to undergraduate students. The College’s efforts to prevent sexual violence — including being one of the first colleges to establish a campus-wide sexual violence prevention program — “ring hollow so long as the Visual Arts Center bears Black’s name.”
Epstein was listed in public records as the director of the Black Family Foundation until 2012, though the Black family contends that he resigned in July 2007 and Epstein’s name “mistakenly appeared on Foundation 990 Forms,” DSG and SPCSA wrote. The Black Family Foundation donated $48 million to fund BVAC’s construction in 2012. According to a 2014 email from senior vice president of advancement Robert Lasher ’88 to Black, Black first donated $7.1 million to BVAC in 2009. Black also donated $500,000 to support renovations of the President’s House and more than $350,000 to Jewish studies programs at Dartmouth.
“Regardless of whether Epstein held an official title, files confirm that within his capacity as director and personal consultant to Black, Epstein advised and planned Black’s donations to Dartmouth,” DSG and SPCSA wrote. “Those donations are a financial scar on this institution.”
The DSG and SPCSA statement also cited reporting from the New York Times and Bloomberg detailing how Epstein “worked to silence and surveil Guzel Ganieva, one of the multiple women who have alleged that Black sexually assaulted them.”
“Naming a building after someone is one of the highest honors Dartmouth can bestow, and as such, the names proudly displayed on our campus buildings are a direct reflection of our institutional values,” DSG and SPCSA wrote. “We recognize that making a change of this scale is difficult; it is crucial that substantial evidence be presented to warrant the removal of the Black family name. However, we believe that evidence is abundant.”
DSG first discussed the statement, proposed by School House senator Oscar Rempe-Hiam ’29, at their meeting on April 5. Similar calls to remove the names of high-profile donors with connections to Epstein have been led by students and faculty members at Harvard University and The Ohio State University.
College spokesperson Jana Barnello wrote in a statement to The Dartmouth that the College “take[s] seriously the allegations that have been made against Leon Black.”
“We continue to evaluate any new information that comes to light with the seriousness it deserves,” she continued. She reaffirmed her previous statement that Dartmouth has “no current financial relationship” with Black. She declined to comment on whether the College plans to rename BVAC.
Student body president Sabik Jawad ’26 directed a request for comment to the statement’s authors, Rempe-Hiam and SPCSA executive chair Mackenzie Wilson ’27.
In a statement to The Dartmouth, Rempe-Hiam wrote that he wrote the DSG statement after a meeting with Dartmouth administrators “exposed a lack of urgency regarding BVAC and what it represents.” He declined to give details about the meeting other than that it occurred “towards the end” of the winter term.
“I look forward to seeing what Dartmouth administrators do now — there is no institutional restraint for pedophilia,” he wrote.
Wilson said in a statement to The Dartmouth that the College “committed to ‘challenge the norms that allow power-based violence to persist,’” quoting the SPCSA mission statement.
“This involves re-evaluating who our community chooses to venerate on campus buildings,” Wilson said.
In a statement to The Dartmouth, Black’s attorney Susan Estrich wrote that an “independent investigation” concluded that Black “had no awareness of Epstein’s criminal activities leading to his arrest in 2019.”
“Of the three civil lawsuits filed against Mr. Black, one has been dismissed, the other withdrawn and the other is currently facing a case terminating motion for sanctions,” she wrote. “There is absolutely no truth to any of the allegations against Mr. Black.”
Oscar Rempe-Hiam ’29 is an opinion columnist for The Dartmouth. He was not involved in writing or editing this article.
Iris WeaverBell ’28 is a reporter and editor. She is from Portland, Ore., and is majoring in economics and minoring in public policy.
