Billionaire business mogul and Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick HC ‘83 is among several high-profile figures recently revealed to have been in communication with Jeffrey Epstein. On Friday, January 30, the US Department of Justice released millions of new documents from the Epstein files, proving that Lutnick and Epstein had been in communication for years after Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008.
In a podcast interview from last year, Lutnick claimed that he had not associated with Epstein since around 2005, when he and his wife were invited to tour the financier’s NYC mansion. The newly released Epstein files prove this statement to be false.
Various documents from 2011 allude to meetings and calls between Epstein and Lutnick. In November and December of 2012, Lutnick exchanged emails with Epstein and his assistants to plan a visit to Little St. James, Epstein’s privately owned island. A message forwarded from Epstein by his assistant to Lutnick after the arranged date reads, “Nice seeing you.” In 2017, Epstein donated to a Wall Street dinner honoring Lutnick. In 2018, they communicated about construction plans across the street from their neighboring homes.
Another featured document in the Epstein files describes a 2021 report made by a former employee of Cantor Fitzgerald alleging money laundering by Lutnick. The whistleblower also communicates that Lutnick likely had ties to Epstein and his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell. Concluding the report, the former employee mentions Lutnick’s substantial donations to Haverford:
Lutnick has donated over $65 million to his alma mater. Though he has distanced himself from the college over the last decade due to political differences, his last donation, in 2014, was $25 million towards the renovation of the main library, the college’s largest gift in its history.
Given Lutnick’s communications with Epstein, Haverford students have been voicing their dissent. Screenshots of the files that include Lutnick’s name, captioned, “Howard Lutnick is in the Epstein Files–What Now?” have been posted around campus by an unknown source.
At the Plenary Resolution Writing Workshop hosted on February 2, Haverford students Ian Trask and Jay Huennekens brought forth a resolution in which the name of Lutnick Library would be changed in light of its namesake’s connection with Epstein. They explained that “[Lutnick’s] implication in the Epstein files simply launched the [resolution] process into motion,” highlighting their own and other student’s ongoing concerns with Lutnick’s position as President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Commerce.
“We feel that it is important that the college reflect the values of the student body, and that those values do not align with the Trump administration or the associates of Jeffery Epstein,” Trask and Huennekens stated in a joint email to the Bi-Co News.
Lutnick Library would not be the first building to undergo a change in name in the Bi-College community. In 2018, the M. Carey Thomas Library was renamed Old Library, due to the former president’s history of racist and anti-Semitic ideologies. This change was spearheaded in 2017 by a group of students who began a petition to change the building’s title after white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee.
“It’s not easy to change the name of a campus building, especially when the building has been donated…It would be difficult, but not impossible,” Ben Fligelman (HC ‘26), Student Council Co-President said. Sarah Weill-Jones (HC ‘26), Stu-Co Co-President, added, “The details of the Epstein files are horrifying…we are happy that students are actively advocating for what they believe in, and we look forward to seeing how [the Plenary] resolution develops”.
Haverford’s Gift Acceptance Policy has a section on renaming or removing the names of donors from gifts given to the college. It reads as follows:
If, at any time following the naming of any public spaces, facilities, programs, endowed positions, and/or prizes, circumstances change substantially so that the continued use of the name may be deemed detrimental to the College, or if circumstances change regarding the reason for the naming, the President (in consultation with the Senior Staff, College counsel, and/or any others that the President deems appropriate), determines that a review committee is warranted to consider renaming or removing the name.
This stipulation makes the renaming of Lutnick Library possible, but the decision would ultimately fall under the discretion of President Wendy Raymond and the Board of Managers. If this resolution were to be brought up and passed at Plenary on March 29, it would then be reviewed by President Raymond.
The Bi-College News reached out to the President’s Office for comment on the situation but received no response.
5 comments
Even in 2014, when I graduated, students were skeptical of taking his money. Most of us also loved the old library and saw no reason for $25 million to go to a new library instead of financial aid. Don’t let the administration trick anyone into thinking it was a reasonable decision back then. It wasn’t, and the folks who accepted his money back then should do what they can to make amends.
I am glad the students of Haverford College are doing what the administration and board is afraid to do. Keep going! A plenary resolution is exactly the means by which the student body should take leadership on this. May this episode result in the library being renamed and serve as a bookend to President Raymond’s failed tenure.
I am hopeful that in the future, we can critically analyze why the college was so quick to celebrate the culture of capitalist excess and the embrace likes of Lutnick and Whitehead and the allure of Cantor Fitzgerald’s riches. Also fuck Alex Karp.
In his testimony to Congress, he revealed that he had lied about when his association with Jeffrey Epstein ended and about the fact that they were in business together long after Epstein had been convicted of sex crimes involving underage women. This lying is completely against everything Haverford stands for and I believe the college definitely should cut all ties with him and remove his name from the library. I understand that such a course might have financial implications for the college but our principles as a school should not be violated for the sake of money.
I hope the President and the Board of Managers do the right thing and cut ties with Lutnick. I will be ashamed of the college if they do not.
As an alum who benefited from a scholarship endowed by Lutnick, this news is particularly uncomfortable. Many of the people named in the so-called Epstein Files can legitimately say they only knew him because he rubbed elbows with the rich and powerful for decades. Individuals in that camp broke ties with him after his indictment for child prostitution in 2005. Howard Lutnick did not: he continued to associate with him for many years after his release from prison, visited his island for lunch, and accepted money from him. That behavior comes across as tacit dismissal of the seriousness of Epstein’s crimes. The stain on Lutnick’s name is so great that I cannot imagine the College would suffer the indignity of its place on the library for much longer.
It really is such a stain on Haverford’s legacy. Lutnick Library is not the only building he funded. He has an interesting history with this school. Haverford paid for his entire tuition after he lost both his parents