Haverford College president Wendy Raymond is considering convening a committee that would review whether mega donor and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s name should remain on the campus library.
Raymond’s statement to the campus community this week follows concerns expressed by Haverford students and alumni about Lutnick’s ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She noted “a growing number of Fords have written to express their dismay.”
“While forming a naming review committee does not predetermine any outcome, it is a serious step and not something I would take lightly,” Raymond wrote to the campus. “I will take the time necessary to continue to reflect and to engage with thought partners before determining whether to activate a review committee.”
Under Haverford’s gift policy, the school can rename a building if “the continued use of the name may be deemed detrimental to the college, or if circumstances change regarding the reason for the naming.” If Raymond convenes a committee, she would then consider its recommendations and make her recommendation to the external affairs committee of the board of managers, as well as to its chair and vice chair. The external affairs committee then would make its recommendation to the full board of managers.
Lutnick, a 1983 graduate and former chair of the college’s board of managers, is one of the school’s biggest donors, having given $65 million. Documents released by the U.S. Justice Department this month show that Lutnick had contact with the late financier as recently as 2018, long after Epstein pleaded guilty to obtaining a minor for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute.
And during congressional testimony last week, he said he visited Epstein’s private island with his family in 2012. Lutnick previously said he had not been in a room with Epstein, whom he found “disgusting,” since 2005.
Raymond’s announcement comes one day after students held a town hall to discuss their concerns and feelings about Lutnick‘s ties to Epstein.
Students who organized the town hall said Raymond’s communications about Lutnick have fallen short. They said they had hoped at least to see a review committee started.
“Many students, including myself, are deeply disappointed and, in many cases, hurt by the neutral and softened language in these communications,” senior English major Paeton Smith-Hiebert wrote to Raymond.
Smith-Hiebert is co-founder of the Haverford Survivor Collective, which started in 2023 and is led by Haverford students and survivors of sexual assault. She said while Raymond notes she is having conversations about the topic, the collective hasn’t been consulted.
“Given the gravity of this situation, survivors are among those most directly affected,” she wrote. “Many are feeling significant harm and institutional betrayal … While I understand there are many stakeholders to consult, it is difficult to reconcile the stated commitment to engagement with the apparent absence of those most impacted.”
Raymond’s message, she said, also should have included a reference to resources or support for survivors who are struggling, she said.
Between 50 and 100 students attended the nearly two-hour town hall, several attendees said, with no students speaking in favor of keeping Lutnick’s name on the building. Students introduced an open letter with demands that has since been signed by 235 students, staff, and alumni as of 8:30 a.m. Friday, said Smith-Hiebert. The letter calls on the college to immediately convene a review committee, rename the library, acknowledge the distress and harm members of the community are experiencing, and “adopt a clear and unambiguous morals clause” in the gift policy.
Students also discussed the possibility of protest actions to urge the college to act as soon as possible.
The issue of Lutnick’s name on the library is likely to come up at a plenary session, where students discuss and vote on important campus issues. That session is scheduled for March 29.
If the students were to pass a resolution calling for the removal of Lutnick’s name from the library, it would go to Raymond for signing.
Milja Dann, 19, a sophomore psychology major from Woodbury, N.J., said she went through all of the Epstein files that mention Lutnick and Epstein and saw references to at least seven planned in-person encounters. Students compiled a 10-page document on the Lutnick-related material in the files.
“I feel it is extremely difficult for survivors of sexual violence to see that name and know it is so closely associated with a man who has perpetuated violence and harm to so many people,” Dann said.
A Commerce Department spokesperson told the Associated Press last month that Lutnick had had “limited interactions” with Epstein, with his wife in attendance, and had not been accused of “wrongdoing.” Lutnick told lawmakers last week: “I did not have any relationship with him. I barely had anything to do with him.”
Some students at the town hall talked about the difficulty of going in the library, which is the heart of the academic campus.
“For me, walking into that space has been uncomfortable for a while,” Smith-Hiebert said, referring to when Lutnick was named President Donald Trump’s commerce secretary. “That discomfort has only intensified given this news.”
Lutnick, formerly chairman of Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., a New York City financial firm that lost hundreds of employees in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, served on Haverford’s board for 21 years.
In addition to the library, which also bears his wife Allison’s name, the indoor tennis and track center is named for his brother Gary Lutnick, a Cantor Fitzgerald employee who was killed on 9/11, and the fine arts building carries the name of his mother, Jane Lutnick, a painter. He also funded the college’s Cantor Fitzgerald Art Gallery.
Students discussed whether removing Lutnick’s name from the library would be enough or if other references should come down, too, said Cade Fanning, the associate editor of the Clerk, Haverford’s student newspaper, who attended the meeting.
“That had the most split opinions,” said Fanning, 21, a senior history major from Annapolis.
But people were concerned that seeing the Lutnick name on anything, even if it was a relative, would be difficult for survivors, Fanning said. And the relatives’ names still signify Lutnick’s “imprint” on the college, he said.
Students also discussed that while they want his name off the library, the college should install a plaque explaining the history, rather than erasing it, Smith-Hiebert said.
