When I was a student at Arizona State University almost 15 years ago, I helped film a massive event on campus known as the Origins Symposium, a science-focused discussion series led by the well-known physicist Lawrence Krauss and attended by thousands.
Years later, I’d come to see Krauss’ name all over the Jeffrey Epstein files, in emails showing that he maintained ties to Epstein several years after the latter pleaded guilty to sex crimes. For me, that revelation showed the extent of Epstein’s ties to academia and how he used them to maintain influence when he should have been a pariah.
And the fallout in academia over the Epstein files continues. As The New York Times reported earlier this week, some of the recently released files show how Epstein pulled strings behind the scenes in 2012 to get his then-girlfriend admitted to Columbia University’s dental school after she’d been rejected. (The revelation raises fresh questions for me about the creepy dentist’s chair Epstein had on his private island.)
Columbia University fessed up to the special treatment in a statement on Wednesday:








