Inside the Epstein Files

College Matters from The Chronicle · Feb 25, 2026 · 33m

The Justice Department’s recent release of millions of pages of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died by suicide in 2019, shines a harsh light on a privileged network of scholars who had entered his orbit. Throughout the documents, professors butter up the financier to fund their pet projects, banter crudely about women, and appear to overlook the criminality of a man who had already been convicted on prostitution-related charges involving a minor. What do the documents reveal about the gilded world of high-profile scholarship — and about elite higher ed’s…