Harvard Club Faces Petitions to Oust Chair Andrew Farkas Over Epstein Ties
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Jul 15
Harvard Club Faces Petitions to Oust Chair Andrew Farkas Over Epstein Ties
2 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Jul 15
Summary
Students, faculty and alumni are circulating petitions urging Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Institute to cut ties with chair Andrew Farkas and rename a campus building named for his late father.
Justice Department files released in late 2025 and early 2026 exposed what the report describes as Farkas’s long, devoted friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, driving the new backlash.
Farkas has chaired the institute since 2012; the group is separate from Harvard but is housed in a classroom building bearing his family name, pulling the university into the dispute.
The pressure follows earlier controversy over Epstein’s 2014 sponsorship of a Hasty Pudding fundraising dinner, which showed how his relationship with Farkas helped preserve Harvard-linked access after the university barred his donations in 2008.