Harvard Economist Severs Ties Amid Epstein Investigation
Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has announced his immediate departure from Harvard University as the prestigious Ivy League institution launches another investigation into his connections with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The 70-year-old economist, who previously served as Harvard's president, will not complete his remaining lectures for the fall semester and will not teach any courses in the spring.
A Harvard spokesperson confirmed that Summers' co-teachers will handle the final three class sessions of his current course. Additionally, Summers is taking immediate leave from his directorship at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Damning Email Exchanges Revealed
The resignation follows the release of email correspondence between Summers and Epstein dated between 2013 and 2019, which revealed extensive discussions about politics, current events, and remarkably, Summers' personal love life. The emails show Summers sought advice from Epstein about his relationships with women, with the convicted sex offender referring to himself as Summers' 'wingman'.
In one particularly disturbing exchange from March 2019, Summers complained to Epstein about feeling like 'the friend without benefits' in a relationship and analyzed his romantic interactions using economic terms, weighing how to maximize 'profit' from what he gave. This communication occurred long after Epstein's 2008 guilty plea for sex crimes against children.
Summers expressed regret in a statement on Monday, saying: 'I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.'
Mounting Pressure and Wider Consequences
The scandal has triggered significant professional consequences for the prominent economist. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren publicly urged Harvard to sever ties with Summers, stating she believes he 'cannot be trusted' with young college students given his lengthy friendship with Epstein.
Summers has already severed relationships with think tanks including the Center for American Progress and the Center for Global Development. He has also resigned from the board of OpenAI, and media outlets The New York Times Opinions section and Bloomberg News have announced they will not renew his contracts as a contributing writer.
The investigation marks the second time Harvard has examined Epstein's connections to the university. According to a May 2020 report, Epstein visited Harvard's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics dozens of times between 2010 and 2018. Harvard officials confirmed Epstein donated more than $9 million to the university before his death in 2019.
The documents also reveal that Summers' wife, Elisa New, a professor emerita of American Literature at Harvard, maintained her own relationship with Epstein, soliciting thousands of dollars from him even after Harvard had officially stopped accepting his donations.
