Students at the University of Maryland, College Park, will vote this week on whether a system regent with ties to Jeffrey Epstein should step down.
The campus-wide referendum calls for the ouster of second-term regent Tom McMillen, a former U.S. representative and professional basketball player who briefly corresponded with the convicted child sex offender in 2013, according to files released by the U.S. Justice Department. McMillen has called the interaction with Epstein “incidental” and suggested that the student government association, which wrote the referendum, had an ulterior motive.
They really want him out because of his past support for Israel, he said. The group has condemned both that support and Israel itself.
“The Epstein thing is just a smoke screen, a Trojan horse,” McMillen said in an interview.“This vote is a form of McCarthyism. It’s a scarlet letter. It’s the Salem witch trials.”
A representative for the student government disagreed with that characterization, insisting the referendum has nothing to do with the group’s position on Israel.
Even if a majority of students at the state’s flagship university vote to remove McMillen from the University System of Maryland’s governingboard,they don’t have the power to make him leave. Regents are appointed by lawmakers.
Officials atthe system and the University of Maryland, College Park, declined to comment on the vote.
But the student government association has brought public attention to the matter, prompting the regent to defend himself inan open letter.
The student government’s allegations, McMillen wrote, “are based on limited, decades-old, and tangential interactions ... and distorted to fit a narrative.”
McMillen told The Banner that he met Epstein when the disgraced financier was a small contributor to his congressional campaign; McMillen represented Maryland’s 4th District, covering parts of Anne Arundel, Howard and Prince George’s counties, from 1987 to 1993. That connection made headlines in 2019 when McMillen wasspotted in a widely circulated videowith Epstein and an associate at a 1992 party hosted by Donald Trump.
Then last year, the Justice Department released millions of documents, videos and images detailing Epstein’s crimes and connections to the world’s most powerful figures, known as the Epstein files. McMillen appears in them twice.
In January 2013, an unnamed person emailed Epstein stating that McMillen “asked about” him. It included redacted contact information for the regent.
Another record showed that in February 2013, Epstein emailed McMillen asking when he would be in New York next.
McMillen’s reply: “I just got back from Costa Rica and heading to cabo in a week so it may be late March. Hope you are well.”
Hasan Islam, a senior at the university who serves as speaker pro tempore for the student government association, said he was surprised to see a regent in the Epstein files and immediately began drafting a resolution when he learned of the connection.
