Mitchell Biographer Asks Maine to Pause Further Name Removals

Douglas Rooks, who wrote a 2016 biography of former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell, argued in a column for The Portland Press Herald that Maine institutions should stop stripping Mitchell's name from public honors until clearer standards exist for doing so.

Trustees of the University of Maine System voted 9-5 on Sept. 28 to strip Mitchell's name from scholarships and academic programs, a decision that followed the congressionally ordered release of investigative files tied to Jeffrey Epstein in 2025. Rooks wrote that the system's task force leaned on the seriousness of the allegations and the risk of damage to the university's standing rather than on any finding that Mitchell did something wrong.

He cited trustee Donna Loring, who voted against the change and laid out her reasoning in a Bangor Daily News opinion piece. "I worry about a standard in which reputational harm can outweigh the absence of a finding of wrongdoing," Loring wrote.

Rooks noted that Mitchell's name was also pulled from an elementary school in Waterville on a 5-2 school board vote, and that legislative leaders took down his State House portrait, hung in 2014. He weighed those actions against Mitchell's role in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement and 15 years in the Senate, and said no criminal charges have been brought beyond Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.

This story was first reported by The Portland Press Herald.