Haverford College president rejects students’ push to remove Howard Lutnick’s name from library

Haverford College will not create a committee to consider removing U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s name from the Delaware County school’s library. Lutnick, a major donor, was named earlier this year in Justice Department documents connected to the probe of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. 

The Haverford College Students’ Council passed a resolution in March urging the school’s leaders to review whether to remove Lutnik’s name from the library. Lutnick has donated $65 million to Haverford College over the years and contributed $25 million toward the library’s renovation in 2014. 

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On Wednesday, Haverford College President Wendy Raymond responded to a series of resolutions passed by the student body during Spring Plenary on March 29. She accepted all but the resolution to rename the library. 

“At this time, and given the information that we have available to us, I do not believe this matter meets the threshold necessary to move forward with a committee,” Raymond wrote in a letter to Students’ Council Co-Presidents Ben Fligelman and Sarah Weill-Jones. 

Raymond, who plans to retire in 2027, said she and future leaders will “retain the ongoing responsibility to consider the relevant facts” with respect to the college’s naming policy. 

“Any future review committee relating to any naming questions will require the best collective thinking of our community, consistent with our values and practices in shared governance across students, faculty, staff, Board, and Corporation,” Raymond wrote. 

Haverford College’s naming policy requires a review committee to be convened by the president to determined whether continued use of a name “may be deemed detrimental” to the college. 

Lutnick testified before Congress that he and his wife visited Epstein’s private island in 2012. Documents released by the Justice Department in January show Lutnick was in contact with Epstein as late as May 2018, about a year before the financier was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges. Epstein died in federal custody in August 2019. He previously had been convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute in Florida.

During his testimony in February, Lutnick told a Senate panel he had no real connection with Epstein and denied any wrongdoing. 

“I did not have any relationship with him,” Lutnick said at the hearing. “I barely had anything to do with that person.”

In a letter to Haverford students on Wednesday, Fligelman and Weill-Jones expressed “deep disappointment” in Raymond’s decision not to convene a review. 

“At Plenary, the student body made clear that we were in favor of such a committee,” the Students’ Council co-presidents said. “This committee would have been a valuable step in our college’s ongoing reckoning with sexual assault. We hope that in the coming weeks and months, President Raymond will reevaluate her decision and understand the profound importance of convening a review committee.”

The resolution in March stated Lutnick’s association with Epstein brings harm to Haverford’s campus community and damages the college’s reputation. Students also sounded alarm about Lutnick’s former role as chairman of the New York financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald, which came under federal scrutiny in recent years for violating regulatory disclosure laws and engaging in illegal gambling and money laundering schemes. The firm paid civil penalties in both cases. 

The Haverford Survivor Collective, a campus group representing survivors of sexual assault, called Raymond’s decision “disheartening” and “insulting” after its leaders had met with the president Tuesday morning. 

“In making this decision, the College has chosen money over principles, and has made it clear that it is willing to disregard the wishes of its own community rather than engage in meaningful reflections on its morals and legacy,” the group’s statement said. 

Lutnick is among numerous public figures, including President Donald Trump and several members of his administration, whose names appear in the so-called “Epstein Files” that were released by the Justice Department. The documents are part of an ongoing federal probe of Epstein’s network. 

Although no new criminal charges have been filed in the United States against any individuals mentioned in the documents, Harvard University President Larry Summers announced in February that he will resign and other leaders in business and academia have stepped down amid public fallout from the investigation. 

In addition to Haverford’s Allison & Howard Lutnick Library, the college’s track and tennis center is named after Lutnick’s late brother, Gary Lutnick, and the fine arts building is named after their mother, Jane. 

The Haverford Survivor Collective said it plans to continue dialogue with Raymond and other leaders at the college. The group said it will hold an event Wednesday night on Founders Green to speak out about the college’s decision and mark Sexual Assault Awareness Month. 

Haverford College Students’ Council said it will offer support for students who seek counseling. 

“We stand in solidarity with and in support of survivors of sexual assault,” Fligelman and Weill-Jones said. “Although President Raymond has not decided to convene a review committee, we hope that all students will join us in raising awareness of and uplifting the voices of survivors.”