As far as your last comment, there's been a lot of historic and present discussion around exactly that blend of science/ethics (WW2, milgram, etc.)
See http://news.mit.edu/2019/letter-preliminary-facts-0912
"when members of [the MIT president's] senior team learned that the Media Lab had received the first of the Epstein gifts, they reached out to speak with Joi Ito. He asked for permission to retain this initial gift, and members of my senior team allowed it."
Obviously they shouldn't name a building or something after the guy, but, to give an extreme example, would it be a problem to take money with no strings attached from a serial killer or war criminal?
Edit: Okay, this is a pretty good answer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20963945. I mean maybe it could be an acceptable solution for them to make a public statement like "we hate this guy but we're taking his money anyway", but having no association whatsoever is probably safer.
Epstein cited his relationships with these schools (built through fundraising) repeatedly both to intimidate his victims into silence and convince authorities to let him go. This wasn't a case of him sending a check and walking away, he was extracting a lot of value for his predatory operation from these institutions. They should face the music for their role in what happened.
Donald Trump of all people went on the record in 2002, saying that Epstein prefers women "on the younger side". His strange proclivities were known even then. So Harvard was complicit in accepting Epstein money until they really really couldn't accept it any longer. That's plausible deniability.
Also note that this is Harvard, which is separate from the MIT Medial Lab story (which I kind of think is being blown out of proportion). Epstein donated to both schools, and I'll bet that he donated to others which we will find out about later. But what are these schools supposed to do? Give the money back? If you can take dirty money and turn it into valuable research, isn't that a good thing?