- Students have called for the removal of Leon Black’s name from Dartmouth’s arts center to which he donated $48 million.
- Black, an alumnus of the university, was closely linked to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
- The debate highlights legal and ethical challenges of renaming donor-funded buildings.
Students at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, have renewed calls to strip the name of billionaire collector Leon Black from the school’s visual arts center, citing his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Dartmouth recently dropped César Chávez’s name from a fellowship after new sexual assault allegations emerged, but has yet to act on longstanding concerns about Black, raising broader questions about the legal, financial, and ethical complexities of renaming buildings tied to major gifts.
The Black Family Visual Arts Center (BVAC), which opened in 2012, was founded with the help of a $48 million donation from Black, an alumnus of the school (class of 1973), who has faced vocal criticism due to his long-term relationship with Epstein.
The Dartmouth community first called for Black’s name to be stripped from the art center building in 2021, shortly after Black stepped down as chairman of the board of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Oscar Rempe-Hiam, a current Dartmouth undergraduate (class of 2029) and a member of the student government, raised the renaming issue again at the Dartmouth Student Government’s first weekly meeting of spring term on April 5, according to the school’s newspaper, the Dartmouth.
An aerial view of Dartmouth College. Photo by Eli Burakian, courtesy of Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.
The college has shown no “sense of urgency” when it came to addressing Black’s dealings with Epstein, said Rempe-Hiam, who has also published two op-ed pieces on the issue in the Dartmouth this year. “I do think that we have a responsibility as student government to call on the college to rename the building,” he said at the meeting, noting that he hoped issuing a statement could “put some real pressure” on the university’s administration.
Dartmouth did not respond to a request for comment. Last year, a spokesperson for the college said the institution had “no current financial relationship” with Black.
Black’s Ties to Epstein
Black has faced allegations of sexual assault, which he has denied. His financial ties to Epstein are under renewed scrutiny after the release of some 3 million additional files by the U.S. Department of Justice earlier this year.
Leon Black in 2015. Photo by Paul Bruinooge, ©Patrick McMullan.
When reached for comment, Black’s lawyer Susan Estrich, of Estrich Goldin, cited a 2020 investigation by the firm Dechert on behalf of Black’s company, Apollo Global Management, that concluded that Black paid Epstein $170 million for estate planning and tax advice and that he had “no awareness of Epstein’s criminal activities” leading to his arrest in 2019.
Epstein, as the director of the Black Family Foundation from at least 2001 through 2012, worked closely with the foundation’s charitable giving, including gifts to Dartmouth, according to the Epstein files.
Documents in the files also showed that some of Black’s payments to Epstein were linked to Black’s former mistress, Guzel Ganieva, as well as an IRS audit into $1.7 million in cash gifts to art dealer Anastasiya Siro. A recent New York Times report found that Black made payments of some $20 million to a dozen women.
“There is absolutely no truth to any of the allegations against Mr. Black,” Estrich said, adding that of the three civil lawsuits filed against her client, one has been dismissed, the other withdrawn, and the other is currently facing a case terminating motion for sanctions.
Complexities Around Donor Naming Rights
The calls to rename BVAC highlight the inconsistencies and complexities of how institutions navigate donor naming rights. Dartmouth recently acted quickly following the New York Times report on March 18 alleging that labor organizer César Chávez sexually assaulted young girls in the 1970s.
The Dartmouth reported that the school dropped his name from the César Chávez Pre-to-Postdoctoral Fellowship in Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies on March 29, though it did not make an announcement about the change. The fellowship had been established in Chavez’s honor in 1994; he gave his last public lecture at the college five days before his death, but was not a donor to the institution.
Maffei Arts Plaza at Dartmouth College. Photo by Herb Swanson, courtesy of Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire.
Rescinding a building name bestowed in connection with a donation is a more complicated undertaking. For instance, as calls grew for institutions to remove the name of the Sackler family due to their role in the opioid epidemic through sales of their painkiller OxyContin, museums had to navigate the terms of agreements before making such changes. The settlement of civil lawsuits against the family included a provision allowing institutions to ditch the Sackler name without repercussions.
The Black Family Visual Arts Center is home to the college’s studio art, and film and media departments. Designed by the Boston firm Machado Silvetti, the 105,000-square-foot building includes facilities for sculpture, printmaking, photography, film production, animation, and editing, as well as architecture, painting, and drawing studios. The college is also home to the Hood Museum of Art.
The Dartmouth Student Government agreed to revisit Rempe-Hiam’s proposed statement pushing for the removal of Black’s name at its next weekly meeting.
