Nothing to see here
Despite its name – or perhaps because of it – there is nothing to see at the Black Family Visual Arts Center in downtown Hanover. That’s probably what Dartmouth would like you to think. Move along, pay no attention to the fact that Leon Black, a Dartmouth alum and former chairman of its Board of Trustees, was a major financial backer of the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Forget that Black wired hundreds of thousands of dollars to at least three women associated with Epstein, according to court documents shared with the New York Times. His $46 million gift for the arts center, which opened in 2012, was made more than a decade before sexual misconduct charges caused him to be removed as chairman of the private equity firm he co-founded. Dartmouth can’t exactly remove Black’s name from the building now, unless of course it wants to return the money. But why should it do that? After all, Harvard still has its Arthur M. Sackler museum. What’s a thousand or so sex-trafficking victims compared to the millions of deaths attributable to the opioid-pushing Sackler family? Cynicism aside, to my knowledge the name on the building has not caused any Dartmouth employee to resign on principle nor any student to transfer to another school or not apply for admission. Nope, they keep on coming. Just move along, nothing to see here.