From Epstein to America’s Campuses: Power Protects Power

Trump’s civil rights purge is leaving more survivors with nowhere to turn.

Earlier this week, I chatted with former sex crimes prosecutor

Dan Schorr

to talk about Open Bar, his new novel based on real-world cases of abuse and cover-ups. We pulled back the curtain on how powerful institutions silence victims to protect themselves, and the people in power who make sure it stays that way.

Today, I want to take that conversation further. This isn’t fiction. It’s happening right now inside our federal government. Title IX enforcement, the system students turn to when their schools fail them, is being dismantled alongside other civil rights watchdogs. And the same kinds of networks that shielded Jeffrey Epstein are back in positions of power.

When the Watchdogs Disappear

In recent months, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has been gutted. Career investigators, the individuals responsible for enforcing Title IX in our schools, have been shown the door. The agency has lost roughly half its staff, and seven of its twelve regional civil rights enforcement offices in New York, Chicago, Boston, Dallas, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Cleveland have been shuttered. Thousands of discrimination cases are now in limbo, including those filed by sexual assault survivors, LGBTQ students, and students with disabilities. These weren’t political appointees. They were career civil servants, the watchdogs students relied on when their schools failed them to address sexual assault, harassment, retaliation, and other forms of discrimination. 

When the University Investigates Itself

Title IX is a federal civil rights law that bars sex-based discrimination in schools, colleges, and other education programs that receive federal funding. That includes cases of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and, depending on the administration, protections for LGBTQ students.

OCR serves as the outside referee when a student’s school buries a complaint of harassment or assault. Without it, schools investigate themselves, often with administrators weighing reputations, donor relationships, and athletics over the rights of survivors.

We’ve seen how that plays out: Call Her Daddy host Alex Cooper says she was harassed by her Boston University coach, and said the the athletic department failed to take action. Now, more than a decade later,  and only after public pressure, the university has announced an “external review” into those allegations. Larry Nassar abused gymnasts for decades while Michigan State closed ranks around him. 

OCR is supposed to be the alarm you pull when the people in charge are also protecting the abuser. 

Title IX bans sex-based discrimination in education. In practice, OCR serves as the outside referee when a student’s school fails to address a complaint of harassment or assault. Without it, schools often investigate themselves, with administrators prioritizing reputations, donor relationships, and athletics over the rights of survivors.

Schorr told me the same patterns appear everywhere: administrators calculating donor backlash over victim safety, lawyers coaching witnesses into silence, colleagues protecting their own careers by staying quiet.

It’s Not Just Education: The Civil Rights Sweep

We’re under a daily deluge of headlines about rights being stripped away. It’s easy to miss the quieter purges, some of which occur without court drama or viral outrage.

• The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has lost key staff in voting rights, policing, and housing enforcement (this is just scratching the surface of what’s going on there).

• The DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), essentially DHS’s internal watchdog for constitutional and human rights, is tasked with making sure the department’s policies, programs, and operations comply with the U.S. Constitution, federal civil rights laws, and DHS’s own civil liberties commitments. That includes investigating complaints of discrimination, abuse, and misconduct in immigration enforcement, detention facilities, border security operations, and law enforcement activities. CRCL also monitors privacy protections, reviews policies for potential civil liberties violations, and issues recommendations to fix systemic problems. The office has seen its oversight resources slashed. A lawsuit by Democracy Forward prevented it from being shut down entirely, but it has been stripped of the staff and resources necessary to perform its job.  

Different agencies, same goal: dismantle the watchdogs so power can operate without consequence.

Furthermore, this is happening under a government stacked with people whose rise tells you exactly how civil rights enforcement will be treated. Donald Trump is back in the Oval Office. His second-term Cabinet includes Pete Hegseth at the Department of Defense and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Department of Health and Human Services, both men who’ve faced accusations of misconduct or abuse, now holding immense control over the rights and safety of millions.

And looming over all of these rollbacks on civil rights and protections for victims are the Epstein files, which have triggered Trump into political theater, from lashing out at his supporters to sending troops into the streets of Washington, D.C., to distract from the headlines. The through line is grim: the accused are back in charge, and the machinery of government is being turned into their shield.

These OCR cuts aren’t about “budget discipline.” The Supreme Court green-lit them, and Trump celebrated the decision as part of his push to dismantle the Department of Education entirely.

At the same time, his administration has gone further, rewriting the rules themselves. Schools are no longer required to investigate sexual assaults that happen off campus, and the legal definition of sexual harassment has been narrowed. Supporters argue that some of these changes strengthen due process for accused students. Survivors and civil rights advocates warn that they create more loopholes for institutions to dismiss cases without review. Combined with weakened protections for LGBTQ students, the result is a system where more complaints can be closed before they’re ever investigated.

On paper, Title IX still exists. In reality, enforcement has been gutted. Most large-scale abuse can’t happen without other people being aware of it. But in a broken system, knowing isn’t enough, especially when the system’s designed to stay quiet.

This isn’t just an education story; it’s a playbook. As I’ve written and discussed recently, corporations like Uber have tested safety measures that could have protected women, including pairing female riders with female drivers and implementing mandatory in-car video recording, but have not rolled them out widely. Internal teams worried it would hurt their bottom line and put the company in political crosshairs due to Trump’s return to office. 

And just this week, a federal appeals court rejected Trump’s attempt to overturn the $5 million verdict in E. Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation case. Another example of him trying to evade accountability, losing in court, and still insisting he did nothing wrong. Again, let’s not forget the long roster of enablers and participants in Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit have yet to be held accountable.

Different settings. Same machinery. The goal isn’t justice, it’s containment. Protect the brand. Keep the money flowing. Make the story disappear.

The fall semester is starting. Students will step onto campuses this week who will experience harassment or assault before the year ends. And when their schools fail them, the federal system meant to hold those schools accountable has been stripped for parts.

What You Can Do

• Document & report, even if the system is weakened. Keep a paper trail: emails, dates, witnesses, and copies of any complaint you file. Even if OCR doesn’t act now, records can be critical in future legal or investigative action.

• Support survivors locally. Contribute to or volunteer with local survivor advocacy groups, campus crisis centers, and legal aid organizations. These groups often step in where federal enforcement has failed.

• Apply state pressure. Many states have their own civil rights and education enforcement agencies. Demand they expand Title IX-like protections and pick up cases the feds are abandoning.

• Defend oversight offices. These aren’t abstract agencies; they’re the last line of defense. Oppose budget cuts to OCR, DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, and DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

• Vote with eyes open. This dismantling is the result of deliberate political choices. Know where your state and federal candidates stand on Title IX, civil rights enforcement, and survivor protections before you vote.

• Stay loud. Institutions bank on silence. Share stories, amplify whistleblowers, and make the cover-ups themselves part of the political cost.

From the Epstein files to America’s campuses, power protects power. And when the federal backstop is dismantled, the only thing between a predator and their next victim is whether the institution fears the PR fallout. Rights on paper don’t mean much when the ink can be erased.

I attended college at a time when Title IX protections were far weaker and rarely enforced, and I paid the price. I’ve seen this pattern everywhere: in universities protecting donors, in the intelligence and military ranks protecting their own, and in the private sector burying liability. Today, the stakes are even higher. When those in charge decide certain victims are simply too inconvenient, the story doesn’t just get buried. It gets erased from history.

Until next time,

Olivia