Larry Summers to resign Harvard posts and relinquish University Professorship after Epstein files revelations
Former Harvard president larry summers will leave his academic and faculty appointments at the end of the academic year, relinquishing the University Professorship and remaining on leave until then. The move follows newly released documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein that prompted a formal university review and broader fallout across several institutions.
Larry Summers to relinquish University Professorship and step away from teaching
Summers will give up his University Professorship — Harvard’s highest faculty distinction — and resign from his academic and faculty appointments at the end of the academic year. A Harvard spokesperson confirmed he will remain on leave until that time and will not teach or take on new advisees. He also resigned from his role as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, a position he had held since 2011.
Emails, contact timeline and executor designation in Epstein documents
The disclosures that precipitated Summers’s departure include a cache of emails and other documents. The correspondence showed Summers exchanged messages with convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein about women, politics and Harvard-linked projects over at least seven years, with contact continuing as late as July 2019, the day before Epstein’s final arrest. In late December, a tranche of records released by the Justice Department revealed Summers had been designated as a successor executor in a 2014 draft of Epstein’s will, positioning him to oversee the financier’s estate if primary executors were unable to serve. A spokesperson for Summers said he “had absolutely no knowledge that he was included in an early version of Epstein’s will. ”
Harvard review, House documents and institutional fallout
Harvard launched a formal review of Summers’s ties to Epstein as part of a broader re-investigation into the University’s historical connections to the disgraced financier. Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton characterized Summers’s departure as coming “in connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the government. ” The probe encompasses other University affiliates and donors implicated in the documents.
As the correspondence was unspooled, Summers initially said he would continue teaching; then, as more messages were reviewed, he stepped back from public commitments and left his teaching post. In the days that followed, he stepped down or parted ways with a slew of organizations. The American Economic Association later issued a lifetime ban against Summers.
What the emails reveal about the relationship and earlier exchanges
The released messages include personal exchanges in which Summers discussed romantic pursuits and Epstein offered advice. In one message from 2018, Epstein referred to himself as Summers’s “wingman. ” A later exchange in 2019 included advice about romantic gestures being rebuffed. The correspondence spans discussions of politics and philanthropic endeavors as well as personal matters.
Summers’s career, statements and ties to Harvard’s past
Summers’s career has spanned prize-winning research, service as United States Treasury Secretary and the presidency of Harvard. He served as Harvard’s president from 2001 to 2006 and later led the White House National Economic Council from January 2009 until November 2010. he called the decision to leave “difficult” and said he remained “grateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with since coming to Harvard as a graduate student 50 years ago. ” He added: “Free of formal responsibility, as President Emeritus and a retired professor, I look forward in time to engaging in research, analysis, and commentary on a range of global economic issues. ”
Related Harvard headlines and wider campus developments
Campus coverage alongside Summers’s departure included multiple distinct stories: Jeffrey Epstein and Gerald Chan coordinated on a proposed Tsinghua University campus in Boston; Harvard faculty saw A grades cut by nearly 7 percentage points in the fall; seven Harvard affiliates were named 2027 Schwarzman Scholars; public health faculty criticized Harvard’s removal of FXB Center Director Mary Bassett; and debate continued over whether double concentrations create both pressure and opportunity for Harvard students.
