University of Texas students walk through campus in front of the UT Tower on the first day of the spring semester in 2023. A former UT professor requested funding from Jeffrey Epstein to fund a campus conference on sexual consent and rape.
Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman
A former University of Texas professor in 2015 requested thousands of dollars from child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to pay for an academic conference on the meaning of sexual consent, new documents reveal.
Professor Thomas K. Hubbard, who worked at the university from 1988 to 2021, wrote to Epstein on Aug. 18, 2015 seeking funding from Epstein’s foundation for a 2016 conference titled “Theorizing Consent: Educational and Legal Perspectives on Campus Rape,” according to records released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act last month.
Article continues below this ad
The conference, hosted at UT, aimed to gather scholars from different fields to question policies around consent and a university’s role in policing sexual assault. The conference was aimed at interrogating “the concept of sexual consent,” something Hubbard believed was too strictly defined.
Hubbard confirmed in a statement that he was aware at the time of Epstein’s 2008 conviction for the sexual solicitation of a minor. The former professor said that he thought the conviction might make Epstein more likely to contribute to the UT conference.
“Like over 1,000,000 Americans, he did have a conviction for a sex-related offense, but from what I could see in 2015, it was for something that would not even have been illegal in most European countries and resulted in a very short sentence,” Hubbard said. “Given his own brush with the law, I believed his Foundation might have been interested in furthering critical discussion of the contours of consent and rape. They weren’t.”
In his letter to Epstein — written on university stationary — Hubbard asked for help raising between $10,000 and $20,000 to supplement his $12,000 budget, which was in part funded by UT through a fund Hubbard controlled. Hubbard wrote that Title IX regulations; the Clery Act, which mandates universities be transparent about violent crimes; and “attention to ‘campus rape culture’ in the media” put an “unprecedented” responsibility on university administrators to police student sexual conduct.
Article continues below this ad
“I would like to inquire whether the Jeffrey Epstein Foundation might be willing to contribute toward the goal of giving this conference greater visibility and injecting some measure of rationality into the debate before the juggernaut of bad legislation gains further momentum,” Hubbard wrote.
University spokesperson Mike Rosen declined to comment. Epstein’s foundation did not donate to the conference, Hubbard said.
Hubbard defended Epstein in his statement, saying he does not believe he is a pedophile “in a technical sense” and was not concerned about his 2008 conviction at the time of his letter. However, he said if he’d known the “political circus” Epstein would create, he would not have reached out to the foundation.
“The only backlash is from the media frenzy to tar everyone who had any contact with Epstein, no matter how remote. Had I known then that his transgressions would many years later spark such a political circus and so many false inferences, I would not have reached out to his foundation,” he said.
Article continues below this ad
Thomas K. Hubbard, a professor of classics at the University of Texas, has written extensively on relationships between boys and adult men. He wrote to Jeffrey Epstein in 2015 to request money for a campus conference on sexual consent and rape.
University of Texas
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 after being charged with sex trafficking of minors. He is estimated to have abused at least 1,000 women and children over decades of secret operations, the Justice Department said.
His foundation contributed more than $9 million to Harvard University, and the school has since committed to donating unspent gifts to organizations that help sexual assault survivors. The Massachusetts Institute for Technology, another Epstein foundation recipient, also pledged to donate to a charity helping Epstein’s and other sexual assault survivors.
Hubbard’s own time at UT was marred by controversy over his study of pederasty, the study of adult male relationships with boys in ancient Greece. Hubbard achieved tenure in 1993 and taught courses in the classics, including “Mythology of Rape” and “Child and Adolescent Sexuality.”
Article continues below this ad
After a student complaint in 2009, the College of Liberal Arts dean approached Hubbard about early retirement, but they came to no agreement on terms that year, according to reporting from the Daily Texan. He received a centennial professorship in 2012 and used the accompanying endowment to fund the conference, the student newspaper reported.
In 2020, Hubbard sued several student activists for defamation, accusing them of damaging his academic reputation and mental wellbeing in their campaign for his removal from campus. The students protested his teaching on adult male relationships with minors in ancient times, passing around flyers that said he “uses his status to promote pedophilia.” Hubbard denied the students’ accusations.
A College of Liberal Arts committee found in 2020 that Hubbard’s curriculum was protected by academic freedom but recommended he take a trauma-sensitivity course, The Daily Texan reported.
Article continues below this ad
Hubbard reportedly received a $700,000 settlement from the university in 2021 in exchange for dropping suits against all UT students and retiring immediately, the Texan reported.
Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know has been affected by sexual violence, help is available. The National Sexual Assault Hotline operated by RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) is available 24/7 to support survivors of sexual assault or violence at 800-656-4673. Text HOPE to 64673 or chat online at rainn.org. The city of Austin also offers local support and crisis hotlines, including Safe Alliance, which helps survivors of child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault and sex trafficking and has a 24-hour hotline at 512-267-7233.