Students stage walk-out in protest after SIS professor appears in Epstein Files

Warning: The following story includes language related to sexual abuse.

American University School of International Service students and survivor advocacy group NoMore-AU staged a protest Wednesday afternoon in response to the university’s response to Professor Earl Anthony Wayne’s name appearing in the Epstein Files, a recently-released trove of more than 3 million documents related to the Justice Department investigation into billionaire human trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

The files include an email exchange between someone identified as ‘Ken Turner’ and an NYPD Detective, Walter Harkins. In the 2019 messages, Turner suggests Wayne should be questioned in relation to his involvement with an underage girl. The documents do not indicate Wayne was accused of any crime by law enforcement.

Wayne, the Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer and former US Ambassador to Mexico from 2011-15, who teaches two spring classes in U.S. diplomacy and foreign policy, told The Wash he had reviewed the documents and described the claim as “baseless” and “fabricated”.

Said Wayne: “It appears to originate from a disjointed email chain that makes outlandish claims regarding international conspiracies and events that demonstrably never occurred as they would have been matters of public record or reported in the media at the time they occurred, and they were not.”

We don’t know what’s going on, and that makes us feel unsafe.

Students unsatisfied with the university’s response to the unverified allegations protested Wednesday, calling for a transparent investigation. The AU chapter of NoMore, a national organization that advocates for ending sexual and domestic violence and empowering survivors, organized the walk-out after news of the professor’s name in the files spread on YikYak, an anonymous campus-based message board.

“We don’t know what’s going on, and that makes us feel unsafe,” said Adah Nordin, one of the student protestors who helped organize the walk-out. “As someone going to class and getting a diploma from SIS, we deserve to know.”

The documents are being released as part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed late last year, which requires the government to release all its investigatory files concerning the late sex offender and financier.

Students have developed a list of demands for the university in response to the allegations.

“We want the university to push for a criminal investigation, for him to be suspended without pay while it goes on, transparency on the process, and a statement from SIS administration and AU addressing these allegations,” said Tanishka Khanna, a senior who also helped organize the walk-out. “Survivors need to feel safe on campus.”

As of Thursday morning, there had been no official statement from the university addressing the allegation.

“Knowing someone with these allegations is teaching here…this can’t be a safe place for survivors without transparency,” said Emily Kershner, Vice President of NoMore-AU. “Whether the allegations prove true or false, we need transparency.”

In the email exchange, Turner writes: “You may want to question the Ex US Ambassador to Mexico; Mr. Earl Anthony Wayne about his involvement with an underage girl when he attended and was arrested by the Federal Police.”

He goes on to allege Wayne fathered a child with an 11-year-old child in Mexico and that another man is incarcerated there for Wayne’s crime.

Wayne said he sent a statement to each of his classes describing the allegations in the file as “online misinformation.”

“I stated unequivocally that the allegations about me are false,” he wrote.

Wayne also said that he never heard from law enforcement about the matter, and that he does not know who Ken Turner is.