Larry Summers to Resign from Harvard Amid Review of His Epstein Ties
Harvard University announced Wednesday that former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will step down from his teaching role as the school examines his connections to Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted sex offender.
According to a statement from Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton, Summers—who has been on leave since November and whose name appeared hundreds of times in recently released Epstein documents—will resign at the end of the academic year.
Newton stated, “Professor Summers has announced he will retire from his academic and faculty positions at Harvard at the end of this academic year and will stay on leave until then.”
In a statement, Summers called the decision difficult and expressed thanks to the students and colleagues he worked with over 50 years, including five years as Harvard’s president.
“As President Emeritus and a retired professor, free of formal duties, I look forward to eventually engaging in research, analysis, and commentary on various global economic issues,” Summers said.
The Justice Department’s recent release has had ripple effects in academia, exposing Epstein’s connections to individuals who sought his funding and friendship even after he became a convicted sex offender. Summers’ resignation comes after Dr. Richard Axel, a Nobel Prize winner, announced Tuesday he would resign as co-director of Columbia University’s Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute.
Summers was treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton and later led Harvard for five years beginning in 2001.
A collection of government-released files has shed new light on Summers’ years-long relationship with Epstein, which included visits to each other’s homes in Massachusetts and New York. The pair exchanged emails on subjects from politics and the economy to women and romance.
According to 2018 and 2019 emails, Summers—who has been married for 20 years—sought Epstein’s advice on a separate relationship with a woman he was tutoring in economics. Epstein referred to himself as Summers’ “wing man” and encouraged him to keep trying. In a 2018 email, Summers noted the woman was never his student but that he had “known her father for over 20 years as a Chinese economic official.”
“I have a very good life with Lisa, the kids, etc.,” Summers wrote in a 2018 email, referring to his wife. “It’s easy to put that at risk for something that might not happen at all—or if it does, might be short-lived.”
In a 2016 email, Summers seemingly used an anti-Asian slur when discussing an upcoming meeting between Epstein and a Chinese university official.
Last year, in response to previous disclosures, Summers said he had “great regrets in my life” and that his connection to Epstein was a “major error in judgment.”
Harvard officials have said little publicly about Summers’ relationship. When Summers went on leave last year, the university stated it was reviewing “individuals at Harvard” mentioned in the Epstein documents “to assess what actions may be appropriate.”
A 2020 campus report focused on Epstein’s ties to Harvard found the financier donated over $9 million to the Ivy League school, primarily for a center founded by math and biology professor Martin Nowak. The report did not mention Summers’ relationship with Epstein. Nowak was later disciplined by Harvard.
In December, Summers received a from the American Economic Association, a nonprofit scholarly group focused on economic research, due to his Epstein ties. He also stepped down from the board of directors at OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.
At Columbia, Axel said in a Tuesday statement that he regretted his association with Epstein, calling it a “serious error in judgment.” He added he is also resigning as an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute but will continue researching and teaching in his laboratory at the Zuckerman Institute in Manhattan.
Axel was a 2004 Nobel Prize winner in physiology or medicine for discoveries about the human olfactory system. His name appears over 600 times in Justice Department files reviewed by The Associated Press, including in emails he exchanged with Epstein and on schedules listing their meetings, dinners, and lunches.
In a 2007 news article—published while Epstein was first under investigation in Florida—the scientist praised Epstein’s intellect, telling New York magazine: “He has the ability to make connections that other minds can’t. He is extremely smart and inquisitive.”
The resignations are the latest consequence of the Justice Department’s recent release of millions of pages of records related to Epstein and his long-time confidant and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. Resignations have spread across academic, legal, and business circles.
In Britain, a former and an ex-diplomat were arrested due to their links to Epstein and Maxwell.
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Associated Press writer Michael Sisak in New York contributed to this report.
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