On Nov. 12, the U.S. House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 documents in connection to the investigation of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The files show the extent of the financier’s connections in academia, politics and journalism, including Noam Chomsky and former Harvard University President Lawrence Summers. Among the documents, Case Western Reserve University appears in emails between BuzzFeed News reporter Peter Aldhous and former CWRU physics professor Lawrence Krauss into sexual misconduct allegations made against Krauss.
The newly released emails shed light on several exchanges in which the former professor sought Epstein’s advice on responding to Aldhous’ inquiries into the allegations. These exchanges took place after Krauss left CWRU.
Krauss was the Ambrose Swasey Professor of Physics and a professor of astronomy at CWRU from 1993 to 2008. He also served as the chair of the physics department from 1993 till 2005. In 2008, he joined Arizona State University. At the height of his career, Krauss was a prominent theoretical physicist. He entered the public sphere with his book “Physics of Star Trek” and was known for his passionate lectures and public talks.
The BuzzFeed article revealed another side of his legacy, chronicling multiple sexual misconduct allegations made against Krauss during his time at CWRU.
One incident was previously described, without mentioning Krauss’s name, in an op-ed about gender discrimination in science and engineering published by The Observer almost ten years earlier, on Feb. 29, 2008. In the piece, the then-fourth-year physics major described “one particular creep of a professor who once told me he thought differently of me compared to other students and asked me to dinner.”
In the following issue, current CWRU physics professor Cyrus Taylor, who was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the time, responded in a letter to the editor.
“I was deeply concerned by the writer’s description of an incident that she considered reporting as sexual harassment,” Taylor wrote. He later told BuzzFeed that he encouraged the student to make a formal complaint. “I raised concern that in a situation like this, if it doesn’t get reported, then there’s the potential for future victims later.”
The op-ed writer recently confirmed to the Observer that her opinion piece was referencing Krauss. She also claimed that the university opened an investigation into Krauss’s behavior. BuzzFeed reported that Krauss was banned from CWRU campus following the investigation.
In response to a request for clarification, a CWRU spokesperson stated that the school “cannot comment on personnel matters.”
Epstein and Krauss’ history
Epstein often called himself a “science philanthropist.” He surrounded himself with prominent scientists, including Nobel laureate Stephen Hawking, and donated millions to institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University and the Santa Fe Institute.
In 2006, with the support of the J. Epstein VI Inc. Foundation and CWRU’s Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics (CERCA), Krauss organized a small conference on St. Thomas, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands located near Epstein’s infamous private island. The conference explored the topic of “Confronting Gravity.” Its 22 attendees ranged from particle physicists to cosmologists, including Hawking and fellow Nobel laureates Gerard ‘t Hooft, David Gross and Frank Wilczek.
CWRU’s website lists the March 16, 2006 “Confronting Gravity Workshop” on CERCA’s events page, although the event description is password-protected. The webpage states “There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.”
In an interview with Krauss published by Edge.org, the CWRU-supported conference is described as an opportunity for attendees to “meet, discuss, relax on the beach and take a trip to the nearby private island retreat of the science philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein, who funded the event.”
Other guests recounted Epstein’s presence less innocuously. MIT physicist and attendee Alan Guth later told The New York Times that “[Epstein] was always followed by a group of something like three or four young women.” The New York Times reported that Krauss and other attendees visited Epstein’s island during the conference.
Epstein also sponsored another one of Krauss’s scientific endeavors. Between 2010 and 2017, Epstein donated $250,000 through his Enhanced Foundation to Krauss’s Origins Project at ASU.
But their relationship went beyond funding. Krauss defended Epstein in an interview following the latter’s 2008 arrest for soliciting underage sex.
“Jeffrey has surrounded himself with beautiful women and young women, but they’re not as young as the ones that were claimed,” Krauss said in a 2011 interview with the Daily Beast. “As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.”
Krauss in the files
The documents released last week reveal new details about the private relationship between Krauss and Epstein. They show that Krauss turned to Epstein several times for advice on handling sexual misconduct allegations after he left CWRU.
On Aug. 24, 2017, Krauss reached out to Epstein, asking “can we talk tonight? I need advise.” He followed up two hours later: “I have a question of some urgency.”
Krauss’s question concerned a new allegation of misconduct. ASU’s Office of Equity and Inclusion had recently opened an investigation into a November 2016 incident where Krauss allegedly grabbed a woman’s breast at the Australian Skeptics Convention in Melbourne, Australia.
Hours later, Epstein responded. “Consult a lawyer beforehand, if possible, but be cooperative/nice at this stage,” he wrote. “But this sounds like an internal discipline matter rather than Title IX.”
After receiving Krauss’s message, Epstein contacted Ken Starr, former president and chancellor of Baylor University, who vacated both positions in 2016 following accusations that Baylor failed to address multiple reports of rape and sexual assault from female students. Epstein explained Krauss’ situation. Starr asked: “What’s the student-status, if any, of the ‘victim?’”
ASU’s initial investigation concluded there was inadequate evidence to determine whether Krauss violated university policy.
Another exchange took place in December 2017, after Aldhous, the BuzzFeed journalist, contacted Krauss for comment on six reported incidents of alleged sexual misconduct, including three at CWRU.
Four hours later, Krauss sent multiple drafts of refutations of each of the six listed allegations to Epstein. Epstein recommended putting out a short, general statement communicating that “[the allegations] are false. they were either investigated and found lacking or ignored.”
Twelve hours after contacting Epstein, Krauss responded to Aldhous, denying the incidents.
“Thank you for your responses, which state that the allegations made against you are false and/or distorted,” Aldhous replied. “That does raise a question: Why do you think that multiple women, over more than a decade, have separately made accusations against you?”
Aldhous then asked about an allegedly consensual encounter between Krauss and a volunteer at an event in Washington, D.C. in 2006. Again, Krauss wrote Epstein for advice.
“did you have sex with her? Condom? Did she take it?” Epstein asked. “I wouldn’t respond. My advice is consistent. Off the record.”
The resulting BuzzFeed story was published on Feb. 22, 2018 with the headline “He Became A Celebrity For Putting Science Before God. Now Lawrence Krauss Faces Allegations Of Sexual Misconduct.” Krauss responded with a nine-page statement contesting the allegations, calling the report a “libelous story defaming me specifically” and “falsehoods and distortions imposed upon the pubic.”
In March 2018, ASU placed Krauss on administrative leave and reopened its investigation into the Australian Skeptics Convention case. Based on interviews with the victim and two eyewitnesses, investigators concluded that Krauss “created an offensive environment for academic pursuits” and had violated the university’s Code of Ethics. Krauss was removed from his position as the director of ASU’s Origins Project in August. He resigned in May 2019.
The Observer reached out to Krauss for comment, but was unable to receive comment by the publication deadline and will update the article on The Observer’s website. Krauss has continued to deny all allegations of sexual misconduct. His professional website features a webpage titled “On False Claims,” which states:
“Following initial social media reports in 2018, [ASU] stated that there had never been any complaints about him by any of his students, his faculty colleagues, his research assistants, or anyone who attended any of the events he organized during the 10 years he was there. Allegations later reported to [ASU] were either unsubstantiated, or later explicitly shown to be false.”
The release of more than 20,000 documents has sparked a nationwide conversation about Epstein and his close ties to higher education, as well as the failures of institutions to investigate sexual misconduct. According to The New York Times, Harvard University will open an investigation into faculty who may have had ties with Epstein. Since the release, CWRU has made no public statements about Krauss or the Epstein files.