… is already notorious for his … unsavory legal and writing career… and, most recently, for his full-throated defense of female genital mutilation. He spends much of his distinguished-retirement time denying having taken part in an underage sex slave ring — indeed denying having had sex with one or more of said underage sex slaves. And here’s an updated snapshot from a life well-lived:

In 2015, the ABC News team of Amy Robach and Jim Hill secured an interview with [alleged sex slave Virginia] Giuffre. In a sequence of events confirmed by the network, producers paid for Giuffre and her family to fly from Colorado, where they lived, to New York City and put them up at the Ritz-Carlton hotel on Central Park South. Robach and her news crew interviewed Giuffre on tape for more than an hour about Epstein and his entourage.

“At the time, in 2015, Epstein was walking around a free man, comparing his criminal behavior to stealing a bagel,” Giuffre writes in an email to NPR. “I really wanted a spotlight shone on him and the others who acted with him and enabled his vile and shameless conduct against young girls and young women.”

“I viewed the ABC interview as a potential game-changer,” she writes. “Appearing on ABC with its wide viewership would have been the first time for me to speak out against the government for basically looking the other way and to describe the anger and betrayal victims felt.“

The story never aired. And Giuffre has said she was never directly told why.

ABC News would not detail its editorial choices.

One ABC News staffer with knowledge of events says the network received a call from one of Epstein’s top lawyers: Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz. And Giuffre and her lawyers placed great significance on that call.

Dershowitz had been part of the powerhouse legal team that earlier kept Epstein from facing serious federal charges in Florida, which also included former Whitewater independent counsel Kenneth Starr and renowned Miami defense attorney Roy Black.

Dershowitz tells NPR he intervened after learning ABC was on the brink of broadcasting its interview with Giuffre. He says he believes he spoke with two producers and a lawyer within the same 24-hour period.

“I did not want to see [Giuffre’s] credibility enhanced by ABC,” Dershowitz says.

In a December 2014 court filing in another accuser’s lawsuit, Giuffre had alleged Dershowitz was among the prominent men Epstein had instructed her to have sex with when she was a teenager. In early 2015, Dershowitz had rejected her account out of hand in his own court filings. (The nature of his denials were such that Giuffre sued Dershowitz for defamation earlier this year. Dershowitz has asked the court to dismiss that lawsuit.)

I think we can all understand Dershowitz’s frantic desire to shut Giuffre up. He continues to try intimidation and lawsuits and all and he’s obviously had some success. Wonder for how much longer.

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UPDATE: Mulling over Alan Dershowitz’s life, UD thinks he can continue to make a contribution to Harvard University by appearing… not as a guest lecturer, but as … a kind of exemplar… in Michael Sandel’s famous discussion of Kantian ethics. Students may gaze upon and ask questions of a human being who has, apparently all his life and quite consistently, used people as means rather than ends. If reports are to be believed, he has done this in a myriad of ways for sixty years to achieve the classic payoffs: money, sex, power.

Could Sandel coax him to speak honestly? I think yes. After all, he will die pretty soon (he’s eighty) and he’s basically gotten away with it, so you have to figure he’s proud. It can be done – a life of cruel self-seeking – and this is the moment, if there’s going to be a moment, when he takes a public victory lap.

Students there know and respect athletic traditions. Even off-season, in the dead of summer, they gather to remind the world what has for so long made the school famous.

We can only wonder what they have in store for us once the season begins in late August. The excitement is building! Pity Aaron Hernandez can’t be there.

But let’s start with an April ceremony at another school: the University of Miami. There much fuss was made about the stellar, the great and the good Morris Esformes, who endowed a chair in medicine at UM.

At one point in the write-up, mention is made of another Morris Esformes chair in medicine, this one at the University of Chicago. But when Esformes’ son and nursing home business partner, Philip, was arrested for having run the largest health-related fraud in US history (he’s still in jail two years later, awaiting trial), the U of C seems to have decided it didn’t want a chair with the name Esformes on it anymore. Maybe the irony of sucking up all that money for medicine when said money came from generations of abused and neglected old people was a little too much for them.

The most recent holder of the University of Chicago medical school’s Esformes chair was suddenly and without comment renamed Louis Block.

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Incidental among the many crimes sonny is alleged to have committed was the bribery of a high-profile basketball coach at the University of Pennsylvania. The bribery was on behalf of sonny’s own little whippersnapper, Morris the Second, who, according to a report, got into Penn on said coach’s recommendation – the kid was a great basketball player, see, and it had nothing to do with the $74,000 in payments Philip made to the coach on the kid’s behalf.

Did the kid ever play on Penn’s team? Nooooo you silly reader…..

Admissions fraud, Medicare fraud, Medicaid fraud, NCAA fraud… This one’s got it all.

A pedestrian bridge FIU installed only days ago has collapsed, trapping and killing multiple people beneath it.

With high-profile calls for university students to boycott the state of Florida for this year’s upcoming Spring Break, a fascinating situation is developing, which we will follow here on University Diaries.

Panama City is by far the most popular Florida spring break destination, boasting open-air gang rapes, up to seven shootings a night, and so massive and sudden an influx of drug dealers that from March 10 – 18 the earth is knocked off its axis.

PCB’s sheriff sets up a spring break jail on the beach. Panama City Beach wears its perennial Trashiest Place in the World crown proudly.

So assume the Panama City Beach boycott – a protest against legislative inaction on guns in that state – succeeds. The gunniest NRA gunnies are going to stage a backlash (they’re already striking back at commercial boycotts of the NRA) which will certainly involve many of them choosing desperately gun-friendly Panama City Beach for their spring break.

This will mean that despite PCB’s post-2015 (year of the biggest atrocities) efforts to sanitize itself (no liquor on the beach; closing hours for bars), and despite confident statements that “Panama City Beach will never be what it was during those times,” that city now faces a kind of ethnic cleansing situation: Everyone who doesn’t conceal carry has been purged, and everyone who does carry is on their way to PCB as we speak. Given all the post-Parkland unpleasantness, the carriers are in a foul mood, and they plan to drink their sorrows away.

All in all, a fraught moment for Panama City Beach. Expect the National Guard to be out in force.

We’ll keep an eye on it.

Sarah and Charles Warren said Puliafito wrote them prescriptions for asthma inhalers to soothe lungs raw from smoking marijuana and methamphetamine.

That’s Dr./Dean Carmen A. Puliafito, until recently the much-lauded head of the Keck School of Medicine, and a man whose compassion for his favorite fellow druggies extended to writing them prescriptions for some of the less attractive symptoms of chemical excess.

Carmen Puliafito’s career tells you all you need to know about why there’s a Black Lives Matter movement. Single-handedly Puliafito proves true everything anyone ever said about the breathtaking immunity white criminals may enjoy over long lucrative prestigious careers. I mean, Puliafito continues to represent the University of Southern California to the public.

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And why not? I mean, sure, he had to, er, resign his deanship with full honors when one of his mad meth-filled nights turned sour and got anonymously reported to USC’s president (the police knew about it too, but didn’t even write a report); but he remains on the faculty. And the same president who knew all about Puliafito’s criminal mischief a few weeks later enthusiastically hosted his elegant goodbye party:

“Today, we have one of the, not just the area’s, but the nation’s preeminent medical schools and medical enterprises — and, in many ways, thanks to the leadership of Carmen,” [the president] told the crowd.

Carmen himself, in his farewell remarks, really nailed it: “[T]he primary job of dean of a medical school is to bring leaders that will really set the tone of the organization.” And tone-setting starts at the top!

Who cares if Carmen’s penchant for hanging out with crooks for long nights of drug overdoses – sometimes in his offices on campus – was the reason for the goodbye party? Rich white people using illegal drugs in front of hotel cameras isn’t, it turns out, illegal in Pasadena.

White Lives Matter, in other words; and in fact Puliafito came to USC trailing all kinds of other shit no one bothered acting on:

His time at Miami was not trouble-free. Marc Brockman, an optometrist at the [university], filed a lawsuit against Puliafito in 2006 for assault and battery and accused the university of negligence in hiring him.

Brockman alleged in sworn testimony that Puliafito, in a profane “tantrum” over an inoperable piece of medical equipment, grabbed him by the collar of his lab coat and choked him.

Puliafito denied wrongdoing.

During the case, it emerged that the university had investigated separate complaints of sexual harassment against Puliafito, according to sworn testimony and court filings in the lawsuit. The records do not reveal the outcome of the investigation, and a university spokeswoman said in response to questions about the probe: “We don’t have anything to provide.”

Puliafito and the university reached a confidential settlement with Brockman in June 2007.

Two months later, USC hired Puliafito.

And what a hire!

In a court battle that is still playing out, the University of California filed [a $1.85 million] suit in July 2015 against USC over its poaching of a leading Alzheimer’s disease researcher.

Puliafito was the self-described “quarterback” of efforts to land UC San Diego professor Paul Aisen, a star in the state university system.

… The suit accused USC of civil conspiracy, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty and other misconduct.

And he’s still a highly respected, high-profile faculty member at the University of Southern California!

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The latest thing is that someone got hold of a series of emails Puliafito wrote to the Los Angeles Times reporters who broke the story about him…

Fuck you.

I’m on you now.

You are fucking with me now.

Watch your back.

You are such a piece of shit.

Call me. Don’t be afraid you piece of shit.

Oh wait. Those are President Trump’s lawyer’s emails. I get mixed up.

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UD thanks John.

Throughout his tenure as president, [University of Louisville president James] Ramsey has deferred to [vp for athletics Tom] Jurich in all athletics matters. He supported Jurich’s decision to keep Pitino, without punishment, after the Karen Sypher scandal. He supported Jurich’s decision to give football coach Bobby Petrino another chance despite the sex scandal that got him fired at Arkansas. He supported Jurich’s decision to keep football recruiter Clint Hurtt even after he was tainted by his involvement in the recruiting sex scandal at Miami… Already national commentators have lumped together all of Jurich’s controversial personnel decisions and concluded that UofL is guilty of condoning sexual misconduct for the sake of winning.

Talk about rushing to conclusions! Does that seem to you the record of a university that condones sexual misconduct for the sake of winning? Whoa, Nellie!

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But look. Louisville’s is not the record of a university at all, is it? The opinion writer I quote above argues that universities are about this and universities are about that and the University of Louisville has to toss out all its pimps and whores and remember it’s a university yadda yadda.

I’ll tell you what’s wrong with this picture. Think about Donald Trump’s huge success so far in the presidential campaign. The more Trump behaves in a way diametrically opposed to presidential, the more votes he gets. Because a lot of Americans loathe government and love people committed to trashing it.

In the same way, a lot of people loathe academic institutions and love people committed to trashing them. Bring in squads of scummy coaches to run your school, give them complete freedom and the highest salaries in the state, and they will of course run your university into the ground.

To the cheers of thousands of onlookers.

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Where’s UL’s faculty? Have you heard a peep out of any of them?

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The University of Louisville has a permanent hard-on. It’s difficult to think when you’re like that.

But that’s the whole point.

But she figured that whenever it did take off, the leading edge of the scandal was likely to be the University of Louisville. (Put Louisville in my search engine.) The only real competition for Louisville would be the University of Miami, but, post-Nevin Shapiro, UM is lying low.

What other American university features a trustee who tried to resign but was forced to stay on the board by the governor of the state?

[Steve] Wilson, who is co-founder and CEO of 21c Museum Hotels LLC, said he has been unhappy with the effectiveness of the U of L board and had offered his resignation to Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear, who declined to accept it.

Bet Steve wishes he’d risked… what? what can a governor do to you? … and gotten out while the getting was good…

Go ahead and read this first article of many. The details are titillating, the taxpayer money impressive, and I promise the accounts will get even better after they interview the players. The school people call the U of Smell is at it again.

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Louisville’s coach, Rick Pitino, has had his own … uh… Here’s UD, back in 2009, posting on Pitino’s… er…

… best universities.

And who knew what a kettlebell weight was?

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The coach in question?

[Sal] Alosi is infamous in his own right. He was a NY Jets coach who was suspended by the NFL in 2010 after tripping a Miami Dolphins player who was covering a punt.

Next stop: UCLA.

Of course it’s not just murderers; for decades, Nebraska has produced manifold themes and variations on Richie Incognito.

What UD finds especially amazing is that whatever you do, the University of Nebraska will continue to celebrate you on its webpages. Look up anyone: Incognito, Povendo, Phillips, Thunder Collins… They’re all still there, worshipped as gods on the Huskers site.

With the Waco biker shootout on everyone’s mind, Nick Povendo’s a particularly interesting Nebraska product. He was actually Incognito’s backup on the University of Nebraska team! But he has now surpassed him. Povendo graduated to criminal biker gang stuff – the same stuff that shot up Waco. He’ll be on trial for murder soon.

UD asks: Why isn’t everyone talking about the University of Nebraska football team? Why aren’t we having a national discussion about what’s wrong with the state of Nebraska?

… Two universities’ football programs…

There’s Florida International University, bleeding its students dry for a team no one watches. Here’s a recent lead from a local article about the team’s last game:

A near-empty FIU Stadium for Senior Day. The Panthers sloughing about as Middle Tennessee State built a second-quarter deficit almost as large as FIU’s average points per game…

After which the reporter goes on to … describe the game. Why not. It’s what he’s paid to do.

FIU students, however, pay a fortune not to attend football games.

And then there’s the University of Wisconsin, whose students also seem a bit miffed about the football program. The editors of the UW Madison newspaper complain about a thank you to our supporters video of athletes that ran on the Adzillatron during the last game and which “left the audience with an uncomfortable and annoyed feeling.” Apparently it featured the lads larking about, while a voiceover kept repeating that the university’s facilities were “world-class.”

A simpler, “Thank you for all the support,” without explicitly mentioning more than once the world-class, bordering exorbitant facilities would not cross fans in the same fashion.

Another cause for the discomfort stems from the funding in general.

While student-athletes have access to their world-class facilities, many students would be right to ask “What about me?” Between the crumbling infrastructure of the Natatorium, the SERF and the Shell, our options pale in comparison.

… [S]tudents will be footing 57 percent of the bill for the [most recent] facilities [upgrade] while the Athletic Department will contribute 3 percent. After seeing what the athletes have and seeing videos boasting their new, nearly $125 million facilities coupled with their newly approved $133 million budget, as students, it’s difficult to accept the lack of participation by the Athletic Department.

Chancellor Rebecca Blank, in an open email to Madison students, likened the Athletic Department increasing their financial contribution to “asking the physics department to pay for improvements in chemistry, just because they both study science.”

This oversimplification does a disservice to the students. What if the physics department uses the chemistry facilities on a regular basis and does not allow chemistry students to use them at that time?

Or, what if the chemistry students bailed the physics department out of a projected $1.5 million deficit like in 1989, when the Athletic Department was under financial duress and student segregated fees covered the deficits?

Oh pish-posh. A little bitter, aren’t we? If y’all weren’t losers who can’t throw a football, you’d be singing a different tune.

… is that the attention of the first-string press (to put this in terms that people at FSU might be able to understand) has now decisively been drawn to all of this nation’s jockshops. The heavy hitters (still trying to keep this comprehensible to the folks down there) of American journalism, the elite squad of long-form writing — they’ve all assumed a very tight huddle right on top of schools like Florida State, and they’re peering intently down at them.

What you have to understand is that backwaters like FSU traditionally get covered only by the local booster wins-and-losses press. If anything having to do with their corruption manages to get published, it’s going to be written up by the local cynical wags as the big ol’ joke corruption is in Florida. Think Carl Hiaasen. That’s the prose model.

But now you’ve got these guys in New York takin a fine-tooth comb to the way we been doin things down these parts for a long time. Take for instance this paragraph in a New York Times article one of UD’s readers, John, just sent her:

The Tallahassee police said officers have discretion in deciding when to press charges and issue citations. They provided The Times with seven other cases in which someone hit a car and left the scene but were not charged with hit and run. A review of those cases, however, found that none was comparable in severity or circumstances to the Oct. 5 crash. Four involved cars bumping into each other in parking lots, one caused no damage at all, and the other two were very minor; in no case did a driver abandon a wrecked vehicle in the middle of the night and flee the scene after totaling someone else’s car. Notably, most of the seven crash reports contained far more narrative detail about what happened than the report on the Oct. 5 accident.

That pesky Oct. 5 accident! Happened to involve some of our Most Valuable Players, sure, and, sure, they fled the scene, but no one was hurt and, you know, they’re just kids. Yes, yes, driving on a suspended license, overdue fees from an earlier speeding ticket, whatever. Who said it’s any of your business?

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UPDATE: Don’t wanna say I told you so about ol’ FSU, but a reader sends me the response of the FSU fans to the New York Times article.

Before I tell you what they did, recall the reaction of Penn State fans to the Sandusky scandal. Do you remember? When Penn State finally fired the man who helped make it possible for Jerry Sandusky to do what he did for so long, the fans rioted. As Gawker put it in a headline: Thousands of Students Riot Over Firing of Child Rapist’s Protector.

FSU fans launched a Twitter block. They flagged the article as spam. They made it so you can’t read it.

And it would be the University of Miami, a comprehensively filthy athletics program. (Put University and Miami in my search engine if you dare.) Of course the dude in question is just your average majorly fucked up nineteen year old male (the article I link to doesn’t even specify the UM drug test he failed), but the entire media apparatus of the United States of America is currently trained on the University of Miami because… Well, they don’t call football the front porch of the university for nothing.

Meanwhile, feast your eyes on the latest I love it but I can’t watch it anymore football fan confession. (Here’s another. UD thanks Dirk for sending the link to it.)

Despite the pull football exerted on [Steven] Almond, a lifelong Oakland Raiders fan, he decided that he couldn’t watch it anymore because of its seamier side: its violence, misogyny and the corrupting influence of big money.

“It’s complicated,” Almond said. “But for me, the darkness was enough to realize that I didn’t want to be a sponsor anymore.”

Darkness? Them front porch lights are shining brighter and brighter.

… note that when the New York Times went in search of a sage, gravitas-rich voice on the absolutely shocking academic fraud at Notre Dame, they could only find Dave Schmidly.

Schmidly! Dave! Dave – comic-book ex-president of the unbelievably corrupt University of New Mexico; a man who tried hiring his son for a high-level university position [scroll down for some Schmidly posts]; a man drummed out of office by faculty… Yes, get Schmidly on the the phone! He’ll have something sage to say!

And he does. He obligingly knits his brow for the New York Times about how, you know, competition to recruit the best football players “increases the likelihood of people cutting corners.”

Dave would know about that! Why interview lots of people for a $90,000 a year UNM job when your kid’s sitting right here?

… Eh. It’s not as though the NYT could find a clean president of a big-time sports university to interview. It’s more a kind of how far down the list do we want to go thing… Donna Shalala? Yikes. No. Hey, there’s Tressel! He even used to be a coach! … Oh yeah. Scratch that…. Next…?

… does it again.

You just can’t keep a school like UM down. Feast your eyes (scroll down) on its decades of crime, scandal, violence, and corruption. Amazing.