Ohio State University (OSU) has called off the school’s review process to consider removing billionaire benefactor Les Wexner’s name from campus buildings, despite hundreds of renaming requests citing Wexner’s connections to Jeffrey Epstein. Interim Provost Trevor Brown’s decision, made public last Friday, November 6, overrides the advisory committee conducting the review.
It also comes as a blow to the university’s Wexner Center for the Arts staff, who told Hyperallergic they’ve been “directly affected” by public discontent with the Center’s association with Wexner.
“Workers will bear the brunt of this decision, fielding angry and hostile comments from the public and having the work we do questioned for its association with the Wexner name,” said a representative of the Wexner Center’s staff union, Wex Workers United (WWU), in a statement. Wexner funded the art institution’s creation and remains the center’s board chair.
In June, the Wexner Center’s Executive Director Cat Predmore told WOSU that one artist and one grantmaking organization have withdrawn from showing art at and funding the Center, respectively, over Wexner’s connections to Epstein.
