The Indicator from Planet Money - Should colleges accept money from bad people?

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

At a dinner in 2010, physicist Sean Carroll is handed a phone. On the other end: A wealthy patron looking to potentially fund his research. Months later came an invite to a conference. It would take place on an island. The caller was Jeffrey Epstein. Sean declined. Many others didn’t.On today’s show, why did so many academics say yes to Epstein’s invites and money? And what Epstein’s ability to ingratiate himself with them reveals about how science research is funded.  Come see Planet Money live on stage in April! Twelve cities. Details and tix here: https://tix.to/pm-book-tour. Related episodes: What an Epstein recording reveals about how elites get jobsAmerican science brain drainFor sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.  See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

NPR. Sean Carroll's job is to ponder questions like, what is the fundamental nature of reality? That's because he's a professor of physics and philosophy at Johns Hopkins University. Sean has also advised on movies like Thor and Avengers Endgame. And he's not a stickler for the details. Yeah, it would be very hard to be a science consultant on Thor, the movie, if you were really a purist about getting the physics right.

Yeah, so Sean has rubbed shoulders with notable science. scientists and Hollywood types. And back in 2010, he and his wife got invited to dinner at someone's home. That night, the host said to Sean, I'm friends with this guy who is pretty wealthy and interested in science. So why don't you chat for a few minutes and see if you hit it off? The host got this guy on the phone. So Sean took the call.

On the other end of the line was Jeffrey Epstein. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. And I'm Darien Woods. The Epstein files give a glimpse into the extent. of Epstein's network across business, government, and academia. Today on the show, what happened after Sean's phone call and what Epstein's links to scientists reveal about how universities fund research.

We recently did an episode on how convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein acted as an elite power broker in government and business circles. He also cultivated a network of high-profile academics. They included economist and former Harvard president Larry Summers, a Nobel Prize-winning brain scientist at Columbia University and the president of Bard College in New York State. Summers hasn't been accused of any criminal wrongdoing. Still, the Epstein files reveal that these connections with academics and professors continued well after he was convicted in 2008. For example, that dinner that led to physicist Sean Carroll's brush with Epstein. That took place in 2010. Sean was a professor at Caltech at the time. The man who invited Sean and his wife to dinner was named El

Sekel. Sean knew Al was connected with some other Caltech scientists and that he was active in the local atheist community. Sean is also an atheist. So he invited us to dinner and we said, why not? What Sean didn't know about Al Seckle was that Searle was that Suckel was that Searle was helping clean up Epstein's online reputation so that negative articles would get buried in search results. All Sean knew back at that 2010 dinner was that Al Suckel had a wealthy friend who wanted to be a patron of science. And scientists like to get to get donations to pursue their science. So this is something that's a call that most scientists will always take.

It's not completely crazy that someone who has a lot of money wants to be a philanthropist and support science. And in fact, I think that's a good thing. So Sean took the call with Epstein. He didn't recognize the name. And he remembers the call was just a few minutes long. He was just like talking very rapidly, using all these buzzwords, you know, he clearly had known something about quantum mechanics or cosmology. or whatever, and he wanted to sound impressive and profound. I think we've all heard that guy at the party who has read that one new scientist article.

Yep, that's how he came across to Sean. Yeah. And a few months later, Sean got an email from Al Sackle inviting him to a conference on Epstein's Island. And he named some other names who were also invited, all very good people. And it'll be interdisciplinary, spend a couple days on an island in the Caribbean talking about big ideas in science. Like, it all sounded great. Sean's wife was also invited. She's a science journalist who often participates in the same events as Sean.

So he asked whether his wife would be part of this conference, too. And we were told, well, she can go shopping with the other wives of the scientists. As you might imagine, this did not sit well with Sean's wife or him. And he already had a negative impression of Epstein after that brief buzzword-laden phone call. I know that this is sort of self-serving and after the fact. I instantly disliked him. Sean and his wife declined the invite. And that was the end of his dealings with Epstein.

Al Seckle died a few years later in 2015. The promise of this wealthy patron wanting to fund scientific research didn't materialize for Sean. And fortunately for him, that was something he could forego. I don't need that much money. Okay. Right? To sit back and have a chalkboard and a couple grad students. That's what I need.

And grad students are not cheap, so I do need some money. but I don't need like to have a huge lab or anything like that. No Hadron Collider for him. No, but other scientists do need huge labs and lots of money for their research. And Epstein was someone who expressed interest in science and seemed to enjoy collecting high-profile people for his network. He would organize these gatherings of intellectuals to talk about science and politics. Combine a scientist's need for money with Epstein's deep pockets.

And you've got the recipe for what Leslie Lincowski describes as, an age-old dilemma. Leslie is an emeritus professor at Indiana University who studies philanthropy. What we see in the people seeking funds from him is a classic case of what we call tainted money. And the phrase literally goes back to the Bible. There's been a longstanding debate within philanthropy as to whether or not a person should take money from people who have committed. one or another kind of misdeeds. MIT, for example, accepted $750,000 in donations from Epstein after his 2008 conviction. According to an independent report that MIT commissioned, some university officials argued

that society benefits if money from bad sources is put to good uses. Leslie says the MIT Epstein example also raises questions like, well, what if this tainted money is funding something unrelated to what? the misdeed was. He says that could change how a recipient thinks about the reputational risk of accepting the money. For example, he says he'd advise an anti-sex trafficking organization not to take Epstein's money. On the other hand, if you run a computer lab at MIT, well, it's not as though you're doing anything that really in any way implicates Mr. Epstein. It's a much closer call for something like a computer lab.

And cash strap scientists can find it difficult to turn down money from private donors. For one thing, this kind of funding typically comes with much less red tape than a government grant. Private donors can also facilitate lucrative connections with other wealthy or influential people. The Epstein emails show how he traded introductions, favors, and advice with the powerful people in his orbit. Epstein, I'm sure, knew what he was doing. he created kind of a human Ponzi scheme. So by having the opportunity to rub shoulders with other people with money, you think, well, gee, there's going to be a multiplier effect.

Maybe I'll get some of his money, or maybe I get Woody Allen to be a commencement speaker or any of these things. Physicist Sean Carroll says the networking aspect was what appealed to him about the invite to the science conference on Epstein's Island. And because he spent a lot of time thinking, about time travel and multiverses, I had to ask him. Is there like an alternate timeline? Like, is it an alternate timeline where you ended up there?

Yeah, I think there absolutely is. I mean, I was more attracted by the idea of just talking to other scientists in a nice environment. Even though I don't need a lot of money, I do need interactions with all sorts of different people, and that's valuable. Epstein knew the value of his vast network. And now some of the powerful people that willingly plugged into that network, are starting to pay the costs.

This episode was produced by Vito Emanuel and engineered by Jimmy Keely. It was fact-checked by Sarah Huadas and edited by Alex Goldmark. Kicking Cannon is our show's editor and The Indicator is a production of NPR.