Student Life
The Oxford donors in the Epstein files
CW: Rape, sexual violence, paedophilia, sex trafficking.
Stephen Schwarzman, Reid Hoffman, Len Blavatnik, David Reuben. These four billionaires have collectively donated over £340 million to the University of Oxford. They are the faces of the University’s financial strategy, which readily accepts the philanthropy of the rich and powerful, notwithstanding the controversy this can sometimes generate. In return, their names have been plastered across the city: from the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities to the Blavatnik School of Government to Reuben College.
The ‘Epstein files’ – the documents held by the United States Department of Justice regarding the criminal investigations into the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein – feature the names of these donors amongst the various emails, schedules, and guest lists. All of these are dated after 2008, when Epstein was publicly accused and prosecuted for soliciting prostitution from a minor. While there is no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of any of these wealthy benefactors, the release of the files in the winter of 2025/2026 has undoubtedly added a new dimension to the perennial debate about the role of billionaire benefactors at Oxford University.
The release of the ‘Epstein files’
The process which eventually resulted in the release of the ‘Epstein files’ began more than 20 years ago. Investigation into the financier’s crimes was initiated in 2005, after a parent reported to police in Palm Beach, Florida, that Epstein had paid her 14-year-old stepdaughter to remove items of clothing and massage him. They soon identified more than 30 girls between the ages of 14 and 18 who had similar accounts of sexual abuse. This proved sufficient for a Palm Beach County grand jury to indict Epstein in 2006 on a state felony charge of soliciting prostitution.
The case was referred to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), raising the possibility that Epstein could be convicted on a federal charge, which could have landed him with a life imprisonment sentence. However, the US Attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida instead offered Epstein a plea deal, promising to end its investigation if Epstein pleaded guilty to two state charges, agreed to accept a prison term, and was registered as a sex offender.
Crucially, the deal included a now-notorious non-prosecution agreement, in which the federal prosecutors’ office granted immunity against federal charges to Epstein and “any other co-conspirators”. Epstein’s victims were not informed of the non-prosecution agreement, which was filed under seal, and only became public knowledge in 2009 after a judge ordered its publication. Taking this deal, Epstein pleaded guilty to state charges of solicitation of prostitution and solicitation of prostitution of a minor under the age of 18 and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. During his imprisonment, he was granted leave for twelve hours a day to work at one of his foundations. In July 2009, he was released from jail, having served fewer than 13 months.
In the following years, more accusations emerged alleging an organised sex trafficking operation run by Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his partner. The latter is now serving a 20-year prison term for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors. In July 2019, Epstein was arrested again and charged by federal prosecutors in New York with having sex trafficked minors, to which he pleaded not guilty. Before his trial could begin, however, Epstein was found dead in the Manhattan detention centre in which he was held; his death was ruled a suicide by New York authorities.
Since 2019, Epstein’s crimes have become the centre of a political maelstrom, partly on account of the litany of famous figures with whom he was frequently associated. In the United States, calls came from both sides of the political divide between Republicans and Democrats for the information held by the Department of Justice to be made publicly available.
This culminated in both houses of the US Congress voting in 2025 to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which ordered the Justice Department to release all the material it had pertaining to the criminal investigation into Epstein by 19th December that year. The bill was signed by President Trump, whose position on it had been unclear; something many attributed to his own personal connections to the deceased financier.
The release of these ‘Epstein files’ has already unleashed significant political fallout on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK, it resulted in the dismissal of Peter Mandelson – an Oxford University alumnus, former honorary fellow of St Catherine’s College, and, in 2024, candidate for Oxford University Chancellor – from his position as British Ambassador to the US, raising questions about the process of his appointment, which now threatens to destabilise Keir Starmer’s premiership.
Reid Hoffman
While Mandelson’s links to Epstein have generated headlines across the UK, and the University has sought to distance itself from association with him, another high-profile figure associated with the University of Oxford, and mentioned in the ‘Epstein files’, has received comparatively muted attention, namely Reid Hoffman. After graduating from Wolfson College with an MA in Philosophy in 1993, Hoffman accumulated his estimated net worth of $2.6 billion by founding LinkedIn, the career networking service. In 2016, he shared a portion of these profits with his alma mater, donating $1 million to establish The Oxford Foundry, an initiative to support entrepreneurship at the Saïd Business School.
The publication of the ‘Epstein files’ revealed that Hoffman’s ties with the convicted sex offender were more extensive than Hoffman had previously stated. Initially meeting through Hoffman’s efforts to fundraise for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the LinkedIn founder’s relationship with Epstein included exchanging gifts – among them dumbbells and a metal surfer statue – as well as staying at Epstein’s island in the Caribbean.
Not only was Hoffman aware of Epstein’s criminal offences, but he actively sought to help protect the convicted paedophile from reputational damage. In 2014, Epstein was accused by a court filing in Florida of trafficking an underage girl to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and forcing her to engage in sexual acts with him. Virginia Guiffre later revealed herself to be the girl in question. Mountbatten Windsor has repeatedly denied that he was involved in any wrongdoing. The Department of Justice files show that Hoffman not only did not disassociate himself from the financier but also offered to help with the media attention that had concentrated around him. In January 2015, Hoffman emailed Epstein saying, “been giving a bit of thought to how I can help with recent press fu…. Mostly looking for help on the on-line front [sic]”. “Nothing to do during a storm, but hunker down, and wait until it blows over”, came Epstein’s response.
Hoffman has issued several public statements about his “regret” over his relationship with Epstein. After the publication of the ‘Epstein files’ by the Department of Justice, Hoffman said on X: “I only knew Jeffrey Epstein because of a fundraising relationship with MIT which I very much regret.” Reid Hoffman has not been accused of any wrongdoing by the alleged victims of Epstein.
Hoffman did not respond to Cherwell’s request for comment.
Stephen Schwarzman
Another influential businessman who appears in the ‘Epstein Files’ is Stephen Schwarzman, co-founder of Blackstone and the principal donor behind the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities. His £150 million gift to Oxford, announced in 2019 (later increased to £185 million), was celebrated as transformative. However, his political and social entanglements have long provoked controversy. His connections to Republican politicians have drawn criticism from parts of the University community, notably leading to the formation of the campaign Oxford Against Schwarzman, uneasy about the optics of accepting funds from figures associated with polarising administrations.
According to the released documents, Epstein’s interest in Schwarzman dates back to at least 2010. In one email exchange, the redacted correspondent suggests approaching the billionaire for a business venture: “I think attaching to Blackstone might be good idea. What do you think ? [sic]”. Epstein appears to agree, though not without some reservations: “at the right level , yes. , however the egos their are rampant [sic].” Concerning Schwarzman himself, however, Epstein’s assessment seems to be rather more positive, calling him “terrific”. The cache of emails does not contain evidence of direct correspondence or interaction, either prior to or following this email exchange, between the two men.
The Department of Justice files show that, in February 2013, Epstein received an email from an external Public Relations (PR) agency purportedly inviting Epstein on behalf of Schwarzman, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, and 24 others, to “cocktails and light supper” to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the New York Observer. It is not known whether Epstein ended up attending the small gathering.
Nor was this the last invitation the convicted paedophile would receive. In January 2015, Epstein received another email from the same PR agency inviting him, on behalf of Christine and Stephen Schwarzman, among eight others, to “attend our gathering at Christine and Stephen Schwarzman’s home” to celebrate the “incredible success” of the film The Imitation Game, which was produced by Schwarzman’s son. It is not known whether Epstein accepted this invitation. There is no evidence in either case that Schwarzman himself personally sought or knew of the invitation to Epstein.
Stephen Schwarzman has not been accused of any wrongdoing by alleged victims of Jeffrey Epstein. There is no evidence of direct correspondence or association between Schwarzman and Jeffrey Epstein in the released files. A spokesperson for Schwarzman said: “It would be categorically false and grossly irresponsible to claim or imply that Steve had any relationship with this despicable individual… Blackstone is one of the world’s largest financial institutions and it is hardly surprising that someone working in finance would be aware of our firm. But that does not in any way suggest a relationship between Blackstone and this individual.”
David Reuben
David Reuben is another influential Oxford donor whose name makes an appearance in the files released by the Department of Justice. Making his billions with his brother Simon in the metals business, David Reuben now focuses his efforts on venture capital, private equity, and the real estate business.
The University of Oxford has benefited substantially from the philanthropy of the Reuben brothers. In 2012, the Reuben Foundation established the Reuben Scholarship programme for undergraduates from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. In 2020, the University received an £80 million donation from the foundation, which they marked by renaming Parks College, the first new Oxford college since 1990, to Reuben College. In 2022, the University awarded the Reuben brothers the Sheldon Medal, the highest honour the University can bestow upon donors.
David Reuben seems to have appeared on Epstein’s radar in 2010, less than a year after the paedophile’s release from jail. Peggy Siegal, an American media and entertainment publicist and regular correspondent of Epstein, described Reuben as “a major nice guy”, and told Epstein “you need to meet him… you would like him.” This appears to have piqued Epstein’s curiosity, as he tells Siegal to “bring him over tomorrow for tea”.
On the same day, prior to their proposed meeting, Epstein can be seen attempting to find out more about Reuben; in one email, the redacted correspondent mentions his “very murky past”, as well as his “huge assets”. In addition to this, Epstein contacted Peter Mandelson in an effort to dig up more information on Reuben: “david reuben, wants to come see me today„ do you know him [sic]”.
David Reuben has not been accused of wrongdoing by any alleged victims of Jeffrey Epstein. There is no evidence of direct correspondence between David Reuben and Jeffrey Epstein.
David Reuben did not respond to Cherwell’s request for comment.
Len Blavatnik
The billionaire business magnate, Len Blavatnik, currently the third richest man in Britain, is one of the most recognisable names among the University’s primary beneficiaries. In 2010, he donated £75 million to the University to fund the Blavatnik School of Government, which offers a number of postgraduate courses in public policy. The University’s acceptance of the donation was met with controversy at the time, largely on account of the billionaire’s alleged links to sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
As far as can be ascertained from the email exchanges found in the released files, Epstein sought to foster an association with Blavatnik over the course of several years. On 16th September 2010, Epstein’s executive assistant, Lesley Groff, extended an invitation to the billionaire to his New York townhouse for dinner with Epstein and Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister. The meeting was described as “very private , no agenda [sic]”. On the same day, Blavatnik responded, confirming receipt of the invitation. A few days later, he emailed again: “it seems like i will not be able to be there. many thansk and say hello to Jeffrey [sic]”.
In 2012, the former US Secretary of the Treasury Larry Summers, in an email exchange with Epstein, informed him that he “visited Len Blavatnik he is your neighbor”. In the same year, an email from Allison Reddington details Epstein’s schedule for his visit to Cannes. The itinerary for the 20th May includes “Harvey Weinstein and Len Blavatnik lunch on boat”. There is no indication of whether this lunch took place.
The chain of correspondence seems to indicate that Blavatnik remained in Epstein’s social sphere. An email from Groff to Epstein on the 12th May 2014 titled ‘Reminder: Possible Dinner Party Mon. May 19th?’ lists “Len Blavatnik” under the heading “Guests”. Other invitees included Woody Allen, Larry Summers, and “Schwartman [sic]”. Epstein’s regard for Blavatnik appears to have continued well into the 2010s. In an email exchange dated to the 24th September 2017, the redacted correspondent asks Epstein: “btw, do you know any adequate Russian oligarchs?” Epstein replied: “adequate? len blavatnik”.
Len Blavatnik has not been accused of any wrongdoing by alleged victims of Epstein. Blavatnik declined to comment.
The University of Oxford was approached for comment.
St Edmund Hall has opened new, sustainability-focused accommodation in Norham Gardens, one of Oxford’s most affluent neighbourhoods.
The College describes the buildings, which took three years to construct, as an “exemplar” of sustainability. Designed by architects Wright & Wright LLP, they are certified with a Passivhaus standard, widely regarded as the industry benchmark for energy efficiency, and were built using “sustainably sourced and low-embodied carbon materials”. According to a press release on the Teddy Hall website, the buildings will use 70% less energy than the typical modern building.
It contains 127 en-suite study rooms, split across three new buildings: Willis House, Ashton House, and Elliott House, on the nearly 50-year-old Norham St Edmund site. The buildings, which back onto University Parks, are powered at least in part by solar panels and are heated by air-source heat pumps.
The rooms include heated towel racks, big double beds, and dimmable lights. Despite the luxury, the College kept the nightly rate in line with the rest of its Norham housing. The College told Cherwell that it “recognises the need to keep rents as low as possible” and that its accommodation costs are “below the median of all Oxford colleges”. By that standard, tenants are expected to pay around £30 a night.
Rooms on the site will be reserved for Teddy Hall returning undergraduates. They will not be available to postgraduates and, by extension, not be offered through the Oxford University Collegiate Accommodation System, now in its second year of opening college rooms to students from other colleges. The accommodation will allow Teddy Hall to accommodate all undergraduates for their whole degree.
The development’s outdoor spaces are boasted as climate-resilient and biodiverse, with landscaped gardens and lawns. For budding geographers and biologists, the most intriguing feature may be an ecology pond.
Chancellor William Hague said in a press release: “Norham St Edmund is a world-leading blueprint for future student accommodation projects and sustainable building design, both in Oxford and beyond. I look forward to seeing it serve a thriving college community for generations to come.
Human rights experts called for stronger legal protections against the risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI) at an Oxford AI and Human Rights Summit, with speakers arguing that human rights standards must be embedded into AI governance and technology.
The summit was hosted at the newly redeveloped Rhodes House in Oxford and organised by the Institute for Ethics in AI. It built upon Professor Yuval Shany’s consultation on a white paper, published in 2025, on the need for and feasibility of an international AI Bill of Human Rights, which proposes ways to adapt existing human rights standards so as to better address some of the unique challenges posed by AI systems and their uses.
An opening video address from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk outlined how AI policy can keep pace with a fast-developing technology. He said that “great power demands responsibility on the same scale, and when the two don’t match, we have a problem”. Corporate control, he explained, means that AI policy stretches beyond existing national borders. He continued to praise this summit for bringing together leaders and representatives at the forefront of the discussion.
Speakers called on the UK government to establish legislation, recalling Labour’s manifesto commitment to an AI Bill of Human Rights. The panellists broadly agreed on the importance of human rights, but appeared less aligned on what enforcement should look like in practice.
In an exclusive interview, Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, told Cherwell that political short-termism Continued on pg. 2 risks undermining efforts to address the long-term consequences of AI. “We are infected across our societies with shorttermist responses to the great issue of our societies and politics,” he said, adding that electoral cycles make it difficult for politicians “to think beyond the next election”.
O’Flaherty also noted that younger generations no longer take the international human rights system for granted. “There is no longer an assumption that the human rights system is safe, that it will survive,” he told Cherwell. He argued that political leaders increasingly treat human rights selectively, saying: “Increasingly, leaders are treating human rights, if they are respected at all, as an a la carte buffet. We take those rights because they serve our goal. We’ll ignore others because they get in the way.
The summit also heard concerns about the effects of AI-generated misinformation on communities that may have limited access to, or awareness of, the technology itself. An audience question asked human rights experts to consider the impacts of AI on populations, such as those in India, who might be unaware of its existence. The focus on the impact of AI on populations in developing countries more vulnerable to the power of big tech was a key theme of the summit.
Eileen Carter from the South African Human Rights Commission warned that underrepresentation of African languages in large language models could exacerbate existing inequalities. She also raised concerns about the effects of misinformation and deepfakes on elections, referring to more than 360 deaths associated with unrest and the amplification of narratives.
The third panel, which offered a civil society perspective on promoting human rights in AI systems, offered some hope. Across all speakers, the potential for AI to transform the beliefs that underpin human rights, including the rights to water, education, and an interpreter, was debated. When asked about AI’s potential to unravel and alter the definition of human rights, such as what is included in the ‘right to education’ O’Flaherty told Cherwell: “The damage that can be done by AI has hit more dramatically and more visibly than perhaps any other sector within education through the phenomenon of cognitive loss, of cognitive transfer. We’re only beginning to realise the extent to which we have allowed education to be fundamentally undermined for an entire generation.
“It’s time to seize that now and engage it. I’m not sure that the classic understanding of the human right to education is particularly well-framed for this extraordinary development.”
In a discussion on different countries’ regulatory approach to AI, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, professor at Brown University and former AI advisor to US President Joe Biden, argued that AI systems should not be treated as inevitable developments beyond human control. “We continue, I think, to talk about AI as a thing that emerged out of nowhere that we just have to deal with,” he said. “We forget that these aren’t coming from an alien planet and they were built by entities that choose to build them in a certain way.” He called for pressure on technology companies to make different choices about how AI systems are developed.
Questions of accountability also emerged during discussions about AI’s potential to improve access to justice. Research presented by Philippa Webb said that only 10% of people who have access to a lawyer can get one while there are thousands of bookings for an interpreter in a court covering 150 languages. However, this progress is not cemented as “general-purpose chatbots hallucinate 58% of the time on a legal task”. The use of AI in moderating legal proceedings raised fundamental questions about humanity and authority. Thompson Chengeta from Liverpool John Moores University said that “human rights is the last line of defence so when we say we want a human rights based governance… human rights is not an idea, it is an obligation. There is a gap that can only be recovered by a legally binding instrument”.
The event culminated in a panel offering an industry perspective. Co-host Dr Caroline Emmer De Albuquerque Green questioned representatives from Meta, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Michael Karimian, who works in digital diplomacy at Microsoft, discussed the role of private sectors in engaging with AI, defining corporate responsibility as something which “provides transparency and identified risks”.
All companies supported having formal programmes to ensure that they have an AI policy in place. Within their own companies, they suggested protective measures such as specialised training to ensure that policies, such as whistleblowing, are understood. Alexandria Walden from Google described how consultations with stakeholders could be used to identify when the product breached users’ boundaries. These assessments, according to OpenAI’s spokesperson, “feedback into tangible technical input” and “benchmark it”.
Fundamentally, understanding the rationale behind human rights is imperative, though lacking. Alexandria Walden from Google said: “Whether or not they understand human rights, they care enough to infuse it in their company… we might not always get it right, but it is something we care about.”
Where former panels discussed controls to ensure human rights are considered in the development and implementation of AI products, this panel focused on mitigation. A spokesperson from Google pointed out that technology is inevitably going to move faster, so multiple tools are needed. Companies, OpenAI’s representative noted, still encounter issues such as discrimination and free speech. Consequently, they regard this as an additional policy which companies have a structured model to deal with, but newer companies, and newer industries, haven’t learnt it yet.
In her concluding remarks, Green called for policy makers to “make the abstract actionable” at both governmental and corporate levels. She argued that, by framing the issues posed by AI as human rights issues, we gain a “foundation” for recognising AI’s many societal impacts.
Ugandan participants in a clinical safety study received an Oxford developed Ebola vaccine this week.
Researchers vaccinated the first participants on 6th October in Masaka, Uganda. The phase follows the launch of a first-in-human Phase I trial in the UK evaluating the same vaccine candidate.
They received the vaccine as part of an evaluation of the safety and efficacy of a ChAdOx-based Bundibugyo Ebola vaccine candidate developed by the Oxford Vaccine Group (OVG) and the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford.
Development for this vaccine began in May this year in response to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The research, led by OVG’s Professor Teresa Lambe and Professor Simon Drysdale, is funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). No licenced vaccine for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus currently exists.
In a statement to Cherwell, OVG said its involvement includes collaborating with the Ugandan research team to support “the study’s scientific design, clinical trial coordination, safety oversight, and evaluation of vaccine safety and immunogenicity”. The Phase I clinical trial addresses a rare strain of Ebola virus affecting communities in the DRC since May. The phase is a collaboration between the Medical Research Council/ Uganda Virus Research Institute and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
Dr Nicole Lurie, CEPI’s Executive Director for Emergency Preparedness and Response, told Cherwell: “It [the Bundibugyo outbreak] remains the fastest-growing and second-largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded – and we currently remain without a licensed vaccine or treatment.” The Bundibugyo Ebola epidemic in the DRC has surpassed 8,600 cases, with almost half of infections proving fatal.
The outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in May.
OVG told Cherwell: “For more than a decade, the University of Oxford has performed many clinical trials of candidate viral-vectored vaccines. Some of the most promising vaccines used a modified chimpanzee adenovirus, a harmless version of a common cold virus. The Oxford-AstraZeneca (ChAdOx1) COVID-19 vaccine was approved for emergency use in the UK in December 2020 and was estimated to have saved six million lives during 2021 alone, and over 3 billion doses were used worldwide.” The adenovirus vector vaccine technology trialled in this study was successfully used worldwide as part of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
More funding is necessary to ensure the development and approval of the Ebola vaccine. Lurie told Cherwell: “Without sufficient additional funding, we are at risk of not being able to develop these promising vaccine candidates… CEPI urgently needs US$128M now to keep our Bundibugyo emergency R&D response moving. Without it, we are putting the DRC, and the world, at tremendous risk.”
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