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Leon Botstein, former president of Bard College. David Handschuh/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images In spring, Leon Botstein announced that he was stepping down after half a century as president of Bard College following scrutiny over his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Despite the revelations, the former president remained on campus and continued to teach at the liberal arts college — holding prominent positions at the institution and living at the official college home for the president, while the college reportedly completed renovations for an off-campus residency for Botstein.
On Wednesday, Botstein abruptly resigned from all roles he held at Bard following the announcement that the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the school’s Board Chair Brandon Weber and Acting President Jonathan Becker and alleged that “Botstein likely enabled and possibly even participated in Epstein’s abuse while serving as Bard’s President.”
In the letter, Representative Jamie Raskin, top Democrat on the House judiciary committee who is leading the investigation alongside Representative Madeleine Dean, pointed to a “startling” May 2014 email from Bard president’s email address that asks if a Jane Doe Epstein was purportedly grooming was “for me, or are you keeping her for yourself.”
Raskin writes, “It is hard to construct any kind of innocent explanation for Botstein’s question and the surrounding events,” adding that the question was sent to “the most famous sexual predator of our time about a woman Epstein was trafficking.”
Weber said in a statement to Rolling Stone that Bard was doing “a full review” of the allegations outlined in the House Judiciary Committee’s letter, and was cooperating with the committee’s probe.
In another statement to The Guardian, Botstein said “any assertion that I knew of or was involved in Epstein’s criminal behavior is wrong.” He said that he submitted his resignation to protect Bard from any distraction and did “not want to see even false allegations about me put the institution I have served for more than half a century put at any risk.”
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The House Judiciary Committee letter also claims that Botstein’s alleged misconduct festered for several decades across campus and that the committee received multiple reports that Botstein “personally engaged in sexual misconduct and abused his power, from groping women to asking sexualized questions in tenure interviews.” It alleges that Botstein also protected other offenders and in a “highly irregular fashion,” he personally oversaw Title IX cases, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in education programs.
