Nine More Higher Ed Names in the Epstein Files

New documents and emails to and from the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein detail his connections to some professors, putting pressure on those named to explain their communications.

The Department of Justice released more than 3 million documents and thousands of videos and images Friday in its latest, largest and reportedly last release of the so-called Epstein Files, a trove of information related to Epstein, who pled guilty to solicitation of prostitution with a minor in 2008 and was sentenced to 18 months in a minimum-security prison. As was true in previous file drops, prominent higher education figures are named in the files as Epstein’s correspondents, friends and colleagues.

The new documents have prompted action in the higher ed space; the US-Ireland Alliance announced Sunday that its George J. Mitchell Scholarship will no longer bear Mitchell’s name. The former senator from Maine appears to have met frequently with Epstein, according to the latest files.

After Epstein’s guilty plea, numerous other women sued him, alleging he had abused them when they were minors. Epstein was arrested again in 2019 for sex trafficking of minors. He died by suicide in a detention facility shortly afterward. None of the higher ed figures included here was implicated in any of those criminal activities, but they maintained correspondence with Epstein after his 2008 conviction.

Epstein is well known for ties to prominent figures in many industries, including academia. Documents released in November revealed the sex offender’s correspondence with former Harvard president Larry Summers and his wife, former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor emeritus and linguist Noam Chomsky, among others.

Inside Higher Ed analyzed the correspondence of several frequently mentioned higher education figures in the Friday Epstein file drop. All quotes are reproduced verbatim.

Nicholas Christakis

Yale University professor Nicholas Christakis, a sociologist and physician, met with Epstein in 2013 and corresponded with him between 2013 and 2016, the Yale Daily News reported. Christakis first contacted Epstein when he moved to Yale from Harvard, and worked to arrange a meeting which finally took place on Sept. 24, 2013 to discuss funding for Christakis’s lab, the files show.

The day after the meeting, Christakis wrote to Epstein “I greatly enjoyed the company and the setting (amazing, of course) and the many good questions, especially yours,” to which Epstein replied “great first date.” Christakis wrote back: “You are hilarious. My sense of humor. Yiddishe kop.”

In another exchange, Epstein and Christakis discuss the protests that broke out on the Yale campus in 2015, during which Christakis confronted students about an email that his wife, Erika, had sent questioning proposed guidelines about culturally insensitive costumes.

“Like many other scientists who crossed his path, I was appalled by the revelations about Mr. Epstein that emerged after my very limited interactions with him in 2013 in the context of fundraising for my lab at Yale,” Christakis wrote in a Friday statement to the Yale Daily News. He said he never received any funding from Epstein, and a Yale spokesperson told the Daily News that there is no “record of any related financial gift” made by Epstein to the university.

David Gelernter

The name of another Yale faculty member, computer science professor David Gelernter, appeared in the files. First reported by the Yale Daily News, Gelernter talked with Epstein over email between 2009 and 2015. In a 2011 email to Epstein, Gelernter described an undergraduate’s appearance. “I have a perfect editoress in mind: Yale sr, worked at Vogue last summer, runs her own campus mag, art major, completely connected, v small goodlooking blonde,” he wrote.

In a 2009 email to literary agent John Brockman, Gelernter wrote “I can’t believe anyone anywhere could be more of a character than Jeff Epstein. I’ve never talked to a more interesting guy or one w/ more all-around horsepower & faster acceleration.” Gelernter did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed or the Daily News.

He told CT Insider, a Connecticut news outlet, on Monday that he didn’t know Epstein was a sex offender and that he learned about his criminal history five years ago.

“From my standpoint, [Epstein] was one of the two (maybe three) smartest men I’d ever met,” Gelernter told the news outlet, reportedly describing him as a “brilliant & funny conversationalist.”

Marvin Minsky

The late Marvin Minsky, co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AI lab and member of the faculty until his death in 2016, appeared in several emails in the Epstein files. In a 2014 back-and-forth with Epstein’s long-time assistant Lesley Groff, Minsky agreed to meet with Epstein at Harvard. In 2011, Epstein checked in with Minsky after he had an operation. A year later, Groff sent a reminder to Epstein to call Minsky for his birthday.

After Minsky’s death, Groff forwarded several notices to Epstein about various events held to celebrate Minsky’s life and legacy.

Lisa Randall

Harvard physics professor Lisa Randall exchanged messages with Epstein for years and once flew on his private jet, The Harvard Crimson reported.

Epstein offered Randall a ride back to Boston on his private plane when the two were both in the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2014—Epstein was at his private island while Randall was in St. John. Epstein had a boat captain pick Randall up on Nov. 30, 2014 and bring her to his island, where they boarded a helicopter to the St. Thomas Jet Center, where Epstein’s plane was held. That same flight also included, among others, former MIT Media Lab director Joichi Ito.

The files include several email chains between the two scheduling times to talk on the phone. In a 2010 exchange, Randall teases Epstein about his house arrest following his 2008 prison sentence, writing, “Wow haven’t you had enough house arrest?” after Epstein told her he was at his apartment in Paris. In 2017, Randall asked Epstein “so how did your island fare in the storm?” to which he replied “Thx. I guess better than being married but bad.”

Randall told The Crimson she met Epstein in 2004 at a dinner hosted by Brockman, her former literary agent who also connected Gelernter to the man, and that she attended a gravity conference in 2006 that Epstein sponsored.

“Epstein was often in touch with the scientific community, many of whom were Brockman clients, and at Harvard on many occasions,” Randall wrote to The Crimson. “I am appalled by the full extent of allegations against him and deeply regret maintaining contact.”

Former Harvard Hillel leaders

Several former leaders of the Jewish center Harvard Hillel solicited donations from Epstein after his 2008 arrest, The Crimson also reported. In a May 2010 letter, former Hillel executive director Bernie Steinberg thanked Epstein for his support and asked him to contribute to a $25 million fundraising campaign. Other former Hillel leaders, including the late business administration professor Carl Sloane and fundraiser Eric Sinoway, reached out to Groff, Epstein’s long-time assistant, to discuss future donations.

In a statement to The Crimson, Harvard Hillel executive director Jason B. Rubenstein said the leaders who solicited Epstein haven’t been involved with Hillel in over a decade.

“We regret that anyone associated with our organization contacted Mr. Epstein during the years in question, and in the intervening years Harvard Hillel has revised our ethics standards to prohibit interactions of this nature,” he wrote.

Dan Ariely

Dan Ariely, a business administration professor at Duke University, corresponded with Epstein between 2010 and 2016, The Duke Chronicle reported. They appear to have met at least seven times, including a meeting for coffee on Nov. 29, 2010 and for breakfast on Dec. 3, 2014.

On Sept. 20, 2012, Ariely emailed Epstein to ask the name of a “redhead” who was with Epstein. “She seemed very very smart and I would love to be able to meet her again at some point,” he wrote. In a 2011 email chain with Epstein’s assistant, Ariely set aside two tickets at Epstein’s request for him and a guest to attend Ariely’s conference. Epstein did not end up attending the event, the assistant wrote.

“To be very clear, I encountered Jeffrey Epstein on only four occasions over the span of nearly a decade. My correspondence with him was infrequent, largely logistical pertaining to conferences and academia, and was often mediated by assistants. Importantly, there was zero financial, professional, or ongoing relationship,” Ariely said in a statement to The Duke Chronicle. In a column published Monday in the student newspaper, Ariely details meeting Epstein only twice.

Marc Rowan

Marc Rowan, the billionaire CEO of investment firm Apollo Global Management and chair of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School Board of Advisors, was also mentioned in the files. The Financial Times reported that Rowan repeatedly discussed tax arrangements and sent internal Apollo financial documents to Epstein even though the company previously denied doing any business with the sex offender. The two met face-to-face at least once; in an email, Epstein states that “Mark was here this morning; we talked Athene, Montauk Rothschild. Planes boats etc.”

Apollo spokespeople maintain that the company has not done business with Epstein.

“While Mr Epstein sought to do work with the Apollo co-founders other than Mr Black, Mr Rowan had neither a business nor any other relationship with Mr Epstein. As previously stated, Apollo never did any business with Mr Epstein,” Apollo spokespeople wrote in a statement to the Financial Times.

Robert Trivers

Former Rutgers University professor Robert Trivers already had a public relationship with Epstein. In a 2015 Reuters article, Trivers, who received $40,000 from Epstein for research on knee symmetry and sprinting ability, said Epstein “was always a gentleman” during their interactions. He also said that he believes girls mature more quickly. “By the time they’re 14 or 15, they’re like grown women were 60 years ago, so I don’t see these acts as so heinous,” he told Reuters at the time.

Trivers’s correspondence with Epstein continued for years, NJ.com reported. In 2018, Trivers complained to Epstein about the uptick in sexual misconduct allegations against powerful men.

“the basic problem is simple—i am going against a strong national trend—well-known man after well-known man is being brought low for alleged his misbehaviour toward women—in some case well-deserved prison time (Cosby and perhaps Weinstein) in many other cases, simply being run out of institutions—exactly my fate,” Trivers wrote. “furthermore in he say/she say confrontations the evidence has shifted—in University settings at least—from ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ to a ‘preponderance of evidence’ to ‘more positive than negative.’”