The New School University Student Senate (USS) is voting to recommend renaming Kerrey Hall, after recently released Department of Justice files showed links between former New School president Bob Kerrey and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

USS posted a statement explaining the bill on their official Instagram account on Feb 29. 

“No student should be forced to live in a dorm named after a war criminal who had direct ties with Jeffrey Epstein,” the post said. The USS bill would be the beginning of a “student engaged” renaming process, “if supported by the university,” according to the post.

The bill would also honor past student protest efforts at TNS, the post explained, such as the Gaza solidarity encampment in 2024, which renamed the dorm building “Bisan Hall” after Emmy Award-winning Palestinian journalist Bisan Owda.

The bill follows reporting by the New School Free Press that Kerrey had arranged to meet with Epstein at least five times between 2013 and 2014. Kerrey told NSFP that he only remembered meeting Epstein once. 

“There was a clear relationship between our former president and the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Given … Kerry’s support of the Iraq war, his involvement in war crimes in Vietnam, it is our recommendation that the name of Kerrey Hall be changed and that it be as a student-led process,” USS advocacy committee member Lucas Imboden said. 

Since the revelations, Kerrey Hall has twice been defaced by graffiti, which said “Epstein Hall.”

“It should be clear at this moment that people don’t like this guy,” Ryder Glickman, vice chair of USS, said, referring to Kerrey.

The post also cited how TNS students previously condemned Kerrey in 2008, when they occupied the 65 Fifth Ave. building to demand his resignation. Kerrey came under student criticism, according to the post, for his support of the Iraq War and his involvement in war crimes in Thanh Phong during the Vietnam War.

“I think that the restructuring process … [and] the honoring of Bob Kerrey and the name of the hall — I think … those two things mark a separation from the university’s history of activism and progressive thinking,” Imboden said, “And so it is my position that we should move back towards that.”

The post also stated that the USS would call for the resignation of TNS administrators, board of trustees members, staff, or faculty if any information is revealed that “explicitly connects” them to Epstein.