By Hannah Webb | Opinion Editor
Over 3 million pages.
If each page were laid end to end, how far would they stretch? Farther than the distance most of us are willing to go for justice. Farther than the space between our outrage and our apathy.
On Jan. 30, the Department of Justice released 3.5 million new pages related to Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender who trafficked and abused children while moving comfortably among presidents, billionaires and university leaders. Over 3 million pages, and not a single new arrest. All this information, and no sustained national outcry. It seems as though we are already back to arguing about sports scores and polling numbers.
If evil can be documented in that volume and still fail to move us, what will?
We have developed a strange habit in this country: we relabel horror until it feels manageable. Epstein is still too often introduced as a “New York financier,” as though his greatest offense were bad optics on Wall Street. It is a linguistic laundering of reality. He was a convicted sex offender who presided over a system of sexual abuse and trafficking that preyed on vulnerable children and shielded powerful men. The language we use matters because it signals what we are willing to stomach. “Convicted sex offender” names evil. Label him as such.
And yet, the release of these files has landed with a thud.
For years, Americans across the political spectrum demanded transparency. “Release the files,” they said. The assumption was that sunlight would purify, perhaps that exposure would force accountability. Now the files are here — a million horrifying emails, 180,000 incriminating images, 2,000 uncomfortable videos — and the silence is deafening.
Maybe the strategy was never secrecy but saturation. Flood the public with so much information that outrage fractures into fatigue. 3.5 million pages is not a revelation; it is an avalanche. And avalanches bury.
But beneath that paper are children — girls and boys who were manipulated, trafficked, assaulted and murdered. Children whose lives were permanently altered so that powerful men could indulge appetites they assumed would never cost them anything. The details are grotesque, and sanitizing them would only continue the pattern of protecting sensibilities over victims.
What is perhaps most chilling is not only that these crimes occurred, but that they were enabled. Plea deals were negotiated, charges were softened and institutions reassured the public that justice had been served. The highest levels of law enforcement failed to deliver what they promised every vulnerable citizen: protection under the law. The system did not simply miss warning signs; it negotiated with them.
And this was not confined to some distant island. Former Baylor president Ken Starr brought Epstein to campus. The same sidewalks students cross on their way to chapel and class once hosted a man now synonymous with child exploitation. That proximity should shake us. Evil is not always foreign or fringe. Sometimes it is invited, photographed and applauded.
I think something I struggle to grapple with is how this became a partisan issue. The abuse of children has been folded into the red-versus-blue blood sport. We comb through documents not primarily to ask who harmed the innocent, but to see whose side will be embarrassed. Outrage has become conditional. Justice has become strategic.
This is a moral collapse.
This is not a policy disagreement, nor is it an economic theory to debate. It is the systematic violation of the most defenseless among us. Scripture leaves little room for ambiguity: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed” (Proverbs 31:8). Those children were crushed — by predators, silence and a culture that treats their suffering as political leverage.
To claim moral seriousness while remaining unmoved is incoherent.
It is a privilege to say you are tired of politics. It is a privilege to scroll past and assume someone else will handle it. Because what that really means is that you are comfortable enough to look away. For the exploited, there was no looking away. Their suffering was not theoretical. It was lived in locked rooms, on private planes, behind manicured gates on picturesque islands.
Epstein is dead. That fact has become a convenient period at the end of a sentence that should still be unfolding. Networks do not disappear with one man; corruption does not evaporate because documents are uploaded to a website; accountability does not materialize on its own.
Three million pages now sit before us like a test. Not of our attention span, but of our conscience. Will we demand sustained investigation, institutional reform and justice for survivors? Or will we allow distraction, loyalty and fatigue to dull our moral reflexes once again?
If we are not outraged enough about the Epstein files, it is not because the crimes were unclear. It is because outrage requires something of us. It requires attention, courage and to care more about exploited children than about the comfort of the powerful.
In a problem that feels so big, how can you help? Epstein is gone, but sexual exploitation, human trafficking and child abuse are not. Consider joining an organization like International Justice Mission or Unbound Now to raise awareness and initiate action through the community. Even one voice is louder than the voiceless victims.
Continue doing research, continue to stand up for those who can’t, continue to care.
