Students on the Bard College campus Thursday said it was upsetting that former college president Leon Botstein has continued to live and work on campus while allegations have continued to come out about his connection to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Their reactions came a day after the college announced Botstein, who ran the college for 50 years, resigned from all campus-affiliated positions Wednesday. He submitted his resignation to the college's board of trustees as House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, called for federal law enforcement to investigate Botstein as a possible co-conspirator in Epstein's sex trafficking operation.
First-year student Ingrid Laurison was among those angered by Botstein's continued presence on campus.
“I think it's f----d. Like, get him off. He shouldn't be here,” she said.
Bard confirmed Thursday that Botstein will move out of the president's residence "consistent with his resignation." But students like Laurison thought his departure was overdue as Botstein's alleged friendship with Epstein first came under intense public scrutiny last year.
“He was still conducting the orchestra, right? Like that's insane too. I don't know. I think he shouldn't be here. I also think like people are gonna throw a fit. Like he needs to leave. And I hope that people really show up to get him out of here,” said Laurison.
Second-year student Elise Ramos said she met with Botstein last school year when he spoke to students to address concerns about his connection to Epstein.
“When it was all first going on, we went to one of the, like, meetings with Botstein where we talked about it, and he was very, like, I would say dismissive, just like no, like no, like whatever, no," Ramos said Thursday. "And so I think that now him, like, suddenly resigning when before he was like, It's fine, like no, like nothing happened. ... he looks guilty, I'd say, because of this sudden resignation, especially with his earlier, like, defensive and dismissive.”
According to the Judiciary Committee investigation, an email was sent from the address president@bard.edu to Epstein in 2014 asking if a young woman being trafficked by Epstein was "for me, or are you keeping her for yourself." Botstein denies he wrote the email and has previously insisted his contact with Epstein was solely about fundraising for the private school.
The committee also announced Wednesday that it was separately provided allegations by more than a dozen whistleblowers of "decades of unpunished sexual misconduct at Bard, including allegations that Botstein groped women and intervened in Title IX proceedings to protect offenders."
Second-year student Zee Assi described the culture of sexual violence on campus as something of an open secret.
“There has been a really bad culture of, specifically, certain professors being kind of protected and having their sexual assault allegations, like allegations against them, ignored that I've definitely heard about and it has kind of been presented to me when I was a freshman as kind of like ... this is like something that kind of sucks and is here,” she said.
In 1991, over 30 students occupied Ludlow Hall on campus, to demand the college formally acknowledge it had mishandled many cases of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape. They held signs that read, “Why does Bard tolerate rape?”
Since then, students, alumni, and investigative journalists have continued to speak out about a culture of sexual misconduct that they say has gone unaddressed by the college.
“It ranges from everything from student-on-student sexual misconduct that is not adequately addressed, professors having sexually inappropriate relationships with students, administrators with sexual harassment issues that remain on the job. It is extremely common,” former student Owen Denker told WAMC in March.
Investigative journalist Sarah Gerard wrote a book called “Carrie Carolyn Coco” about the 2016 death of her friend, Carolyn Bush, who was stabbed to death by her roommate, Render Stetson-Shanahan. Both were part of the Bard community.
Gerard told WAMC in March that in researching the book she looked at all the lawsuits against the college she could find in the Dutchess County and City of Poughkeepsie courts.
“There's a long history of Bard students being raped by their male classmates and being harassed or ignored by the administration until they drop out of school with no other recourse, or they sue the school, and the lawsuit drags on for years, and that becomes another form of harassment and revictimization for that woman. That's just been their strategy for 50 years; it seems to me,” she said.
The FBI directed WAMC to the Justice Department for comment regarding Raskin's call for a criminal investigation. WAMC has reached out.
