The University of Maine System’s Board of Trustees voted this week to remove former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell’s name from a university building and scholarship fund because of his association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The board voted 9-5 on Monday, with one abstention, to rename the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions at the University of Maine’s flagship campus in Orono. It also approved a new name for the George J. Mitchell Peace Scholarship, which supports one year of postgraduate study at universities in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Mitchell, now 93, is referenced more than 300 times in the extensive files connected to the Epstein case that the Department of Justice released earlier this year. The former senator continued meeting with Epstein as recently as 2013—five years after the financier received a favorable plea agreement in Florida. Under that deal, Epstein pleaded guilty to two counts of soliciting prostitution, including one involving a minor.
Mitchell has repeatedly denied any personal misconduct and said he had no knowledge of Epstein’s sexual abuse of young girls.
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University of Maine officials formed a task force in February to determine whether Mitchell’s name should be removed from university property after the Epstein files were released. The investigation concluded: “While no findings of wrongdoing by Senator Mitchell have been made, in light of the material that has recently been made public by the U.S. Department of Justice, and mindful of the experiences of victims and survivors, the task force concludes that continued use of Senator Mitchell’s name would compromise the public trust and reflect adversely upon the university and its reputation.”
Mitchell was appointed to the U.S. Senate in 1980 and won two full terms before leaving electoral politics in 1995. He then became President Bill Clinton’s special envoy for Northern Ireland, where he received broad credit for helping negotiate the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, an accord that largely brought decades of sectarian violence to an end.
In 2006, then-MLB Commissioner Bud Selig selected Mitchell to examine steroid and performance-enhancing drug use in professional baseball. Released in December 2007, the Mitchell Report named 89 current and former players as confirmed or suspected users. New York Yankees star Roger Clemens was the most prominent player identified.
Major League Baseball expanded its drug-testing program after the report was published and introduced tougher penalties. Players faced an 80-game suspension for a first positive test, a ban covering an entire 162-game season for a second, and a lifetime suspension after a third.
