Content warning: reported sexual violence, reported homicide
As an attorney who focuses on gender-based violence, I wasn’t surprised that the “Epstein files” confirmed what my gender justice comrades and I had known all along: Trump’s Title IX rule on sexual harassment in schools is anti-survivor. The files—which come from Jeffrey Epstein’s communications—were grotesque.
Here’s what I found:
“under the new [rule].. they would have had to=throw out almost all the claims against me.. if not all of them” (sic) – Lawrence Krauss
According to the Epstein files, in 2018, an Arizona professor named Lawrence Krauss texted Epstein, claiming he was facing a “false claim” of sexual misconduct at a conference in Australia. At this point, Jeffrey Epstein was already a disgraced financier, having pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from a child and been credibly accused of child sex trafficking by multiple other women.
Krauss told Epstein he had found a potential lawyer but couldn’t afford to pay him. The lawyer was willing to be vetted by Epstein. Epstein then paid for him to defend Krauss in the university’s sexual harassment investigation.
Epstein speculated to Krauss that Trump “might be [Krauss’s] out,” referring to Trump’s much-anticipated sexual harassment rule. But before Trump issued that rule, Krauss’s university found him responsible for grabbing a woman’s breast in Australia based on statements from multiple eyewitnesses.
Later that year, Trump proposed his new sexual harassment rule. When Epstein saw the leaked proposal, he ranted in all caps: “DUE PROCESS.” Epstein’s words echoed the rallying cry of so-called “men’s rights” advocates—many of whom helped write the Trump rule—who promote rape myths and baselessly accuse survivors of disregarding “due process.”
A few months later, upon seeing the official proposal of Trump’s rule, Krauss lamented to Epstein: “under the new guidelines.. they would have had to=throw out almost all the claims against me.. if not all of them” (sic).
“My friends in the White House HATE the title IX c-nts.” – Jeffrey Epstein
As a Title IX attorney, I wasn’t surprised to see Epstein and Krauss appearing to celebrate Trump’s Title IX rule on sexual harassment. After all, the Trump rule requires schools to dismiss the complaints of many victims, including when they don’t suffer enough or when they are harassed outside of school or abroad (as in Krauss’s case). And if a survivor is lucky enough to get an investigation at all, they must still endure uniquely unfair procedures that aren’t required for other types of school misconduct, including hostile cross-examination and a presumption that they weren’t actually assaulted.
I was also not terribly surprised to see Krauss’s attorney, Justin Dillon, being paid for by Epstein to represent Krauss. Like Epstein, Dillon has hailed the Trump rule as a “due process” win for alleged harassers.
Most of all, I wasn’t surprised at all to see Epstein brag to Krauss that his “friends in the White House HATE the title Ix c-nts” (sic), in reference to us survivor advocates. We’ve known that.
Trump’s sexual harassment rule and the Epstein class’s alleged abuse of women and girls are part of a larger fascist agenda.
I am reminded that the word “survivor” is often used to refer to victims of gender-based violence, although many victims do not survive.
The Epstein files reveal that at least two women reported to the FBI that, when they were children, Epstein trafficked them, Trump and other wealthy adults paid to sexually abuse them, and Trump watched with one of the girls—only 13 years old at the time—as her newborn baby was murdered by her uncle and disposed of in a lake. There is also evidence to suggest that many of Epstein’s victims were cruelly murdered, whether sadistically for sport or to silence them from speaking out.
Horrors.
Likewise, many student victims of gender-based violence don’t survive. Trump’s sexual harassment rule does not care. It seeks to protect abusers and quell victims, at all costs. Violence is a feature, not a bug, of the Trump rule.
From the Epstein files, it’s clear that both the Epstein class and Trump’s rule advance the same larger fascist agenda that sees children and women as subhuman objects to be exploited, extinguished, and buried in service of white male supremacist capitalist domination.
We are still fighting back.
Earlier this year, Epstein’s survivors and his deceased victims’ family members joined Congress to introduce a bill to eliminate the deadline for bringing civil sexual abuse cases.
My NWLC colleagues and I have also been fighting to stop Trump’s sexual harassment rule since it was proposed in 2018. When it became law in 2020, we sued and got an especially egregious portion of the rule struck down. Later, we pushed relentlessly for the Biden administration to replace the Trump rule.
Unfortunately, Biden’s 2024 rule—which created far stronger protections for not only student survivors but also LGBTQIA+ and pregnant students—was only law for a few months. An alliance of extremists and 26 conservative states unleashed a flood of lawsuits around the country, targeting courts with Trump-appointed judges, and got it struck down in early 2025. We then battled in multiple hostile courts to restore strong protections for student survivors.
The fight goes on. We will never stop seeking justice—in honor of all survivors of gender-based violence and in memory of all the victims who did not survive.
And to all of the architects, accomplices, and apologists for Trump’s sexual harassment rule: if you’re reading this, well, you must live with the knowledge and shame that Jeffrey Epstein loved your work.
The post Jeffrey Epstein Loved Trump’s Changes to the Title IX Rule. That Tells You All You Need to Know. appeared first on National Women's Law Center.
