A broad cross-section of the Dartmouth College community has renewed calls to remove the name of financier Leon Black, an alumnus and former trustee, from the college's visual arts center.

In response, the college's board of trustees has announced that it will appoint a committee to study "naming across campus" at its next meeting, in June.

For critics of Black, who paid $170 million to Jeffrey Epstein after Epstein's 2008 guilty plea to soliciting prostitution, the trustees' action amounts to stalling. Dartmouth leaders should have removed the name of the Black Family Visual Arts Center years ago, they contend.

"I'm glad they're being thoughtful, but they've really had a lot of time to think on this issue," Diana Whitney, a 1995 Dartmouth graduate and co-founder of Dartmouth Community against Gender Harassment and Sexual Violence, said in a phone interview. "I think any more delay on this is unconscionable," she added.

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The renewed campaign to take Black's name down is a sign both that the ongoing release and investigation of the Epstein files seems likely to continue to reveal further links between Epstein and Leon Black, and that the issue isn't going to fade into the background at Dartmouth.

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