October 7, 2026
Leon Botstein Resigns from Bard College
By Courier Staff
Status: Resigned all Bard positions · Oct. 7, 2026
Leon Botstein, who led Bard College for 51 years, resigned from all of his remaining positions at the school on Oct. 7. The same day, House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin and Pennsylvania Representative Madeleine Dean asked the Justice Department and FBI to investigate him as a possible co-conspirator in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. The lawmakers cite a 2014 email that they say was sent from Bard’s president@bard.edu account and asked Epstein whether a young woman he had sent to meet Botstein was “for me, or are you keeping her for yourself.” According to the lawmakers, Epstein was grooming the woman, a foreign model and aspiring singer, and used Botstein to convince her she could have a music career. In a statement, Botstein called the allegations untrue and denied writing or sending the email.
Emails in the Justice Department’s Epstein files show the two men corresponded from 2011 until January 2018, years after Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea. In a December 2012 email, a Bard assistant and Epstein’s office arranged for Botstein to be “picked up and taken to Jeffrey’s island.” A Botstein spokesperson has described that as a brief fundraising trip. Botstein stepped down as president June 30, after a Bard-commissioned review by the law firm WilmerHale reportedly found he made errors in judgment but did nothing illegal. He has said the relationship was solely about fundraising.
Raskin and Dean’s letters also relay allegations from more than a dozen whistleblowers that Botstein groped women and intervened in Title IX cases to protect people accused of misconduct. Bard’s board chair, Brandon Weber, says the college president has had no unilateral authority over Title IX cases since the 2015–16 school year. The lawmakers are also demanding to know why DOJ exposed the young woman’s name hundreds of times in the released files while redacting Botstein’s email address.
Read more: Raskin and Dean’s press release.