Publicizing Epstein names: True justice versus McCarthy-era witch-hunt? | Opinion
Recent American history is littered with “blacklists,” lists of people whom someone thinks are unacceptable or untrustworthy and should be excluded or avoided. Blacklists — especially those that are politically-charged — may seem to bring order in moments of chaos and expose the misdeeds of the “bad guys.”
That is certainly the case with the Jeffrey Epstein files and Epstein’s client list. Now that President Donald Trump has changed his mind and urged House Republicans to vote yes on a measure to compel the Justice Department to release the Epstein files, we are one step closer to the moment those files see the light of day.
Making these files public will certainly meet the clamor of the moment and end the silence about powerful people who may have done horrible things. The pursuit of justice is a powerful driving force behind the demand to release the information contained in the Epstein files.
We hope justice will be done to those who aided and abetted him or preyed on the young women who were his victims.
But a note of caution: There is a difference between guilt by association with Epstein and the guilt that should attach to those who condoned what he did or joined him in his despicable activities. The commentator Eliu Federman warned in a recent Miami Herald op-ed that a feeding frenzy will accompany “publication of names based on mere association with Epstein, without evidence of involvement in his crimes.”
It is and has always been hard to resist assigning guilt by association. It will be especially hard when we learn more about the horrors of Epstein’s crime and those of his compatriots.
We can gauge just how difficult it will be by recalling how blacklists operate.
Recall a line from Senator Joseph McCarthy’s 1950 address: “I have here in my hand a list of 205 (men in the State Department who are members of the Communist Party and members of a spy ring).” Nobody ever saw McCarthy’s list, but its mere mention caused suspicion and turmoil.
That is what it was meant to do.
Fast-forward to the age of the internet, in which McCarthy-esque lists have found fertile soil and are easily accessed and spread. Arguably, one of the most well-known contemporary blacklists was found in David Horowitz’s 2006 book, “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.” Horowitz’s list was designed to expose academics who allegedly indoctrinated their students with their own left-wing political views.
No one is given due process before their name appears on a list. Neither will people whose names are found in the Epstein files.
It is easy for a list of names to become a blacklist, regardless of the intention behind its creation. That will almost certainly happen with the Epstein files.
Other examples of how guilt by association can be fostered by lists include Daniel Pipes’ Campus Watch, which was developed to “review and critique Middle East studies in North America with an aim to improve them”; the anonymously run website Canary Mission, which has allegedly helped the Trump Administration’s efforts to stop antisemitism on college campuses; and the American Accountability Foundation, which “works…to expose the left’s efforts to obstruct, subvert and sabotage the America First conservative agenda,” according to its website.
And blacklists are not just tools of right-wing groups. For example, the Southern Poverty Law Center has many lists, including “Extremists” and “Active Hate Groups.” Although profiles are seemingly well-sourced, researched and nonpartisan, the SPLC had to pay $3.3 million to Maajid Nawaz’s Quilliam Foundation after falsely listing him and his foundation as extremists.
Lists like these can quickly become blacklists. When they do, accusation is sufficient. Guilt by association is enough to ruin reputations and derail careers.
As we await the release of the Epstein files, we need to remember that some of the people whose names appear there may have done truly despicable things. Others may have done nothing more than take Epstein at face value.
The former deserve our condemnation. But the latter may find themselves in the world blacklists create: stigmatized and shunned.
That world is familiar to the victims of McCarthyism and to those whose names appear on lists available or distributed by groups seeking to discredit them. We need to remember that it is most important to withhold judgment when doing so is most difficult.
When the names in the Epstein files become public, we will see again how well Americans do at that task.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College. Parker Smith, born and raised on the Big Island of Hawai’i, is a junior at Amherst College, majoring in political science.