Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers announced that he will leave his faculty and academic roles at Harvard University at the close of the academic year, as scrutiny continues over his past association with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The Harvard Crimson was first to report the news of Summers resignation.
Summers, who has been on leave since November, is retiring from his professorship and relinquishing his position as co-director of Harvard’s Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government. A university spokesperson said that the decision was made “in connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the government.”
In a statement, Summers said, “I have made the difficult decision to retire from my Harvard professorship at the end of this academic year,” adding, “I will always be 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 also said that, after retiring, he hopes to return eventually to research and commentary on global economic issues.
Summers, who led Harvard from 2001 to 2006, previously served as Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton from 1999 to 2001. He later worked as director of the National Economic Council during the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2011.
His departure follows the release of emails and other materials from Epstein’s estate by the House Oversight Committee and the Justice Department. While Summers has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing, the documents revealed that Summers remained in contact with Epstein for years, including after Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea in Florida on charges related to soliciting a minor (but before his 2019 arrest on federal sex trafficking charges). Flight logs show Summers traveled multiple times on Epstein’s plane, and Harvard received millions of dollars in donations from Epstein before that plea.
In November, Summers said he was “deeply ashamed” of maintaining communication with Epstein and announced he was stepping back from public engagements. He resigned from several outside roles, including the board of OpenAI and advisory positions at major media and financial institutions. He was also barred for life from the American Economic Association.
Epstein died by suicide in a New York federal jail in 2019. Despite scrutiny, there is no public evidence linking Summers to any of Epstein’s crimes, and no survivors have accused him of misconduct. Harvard has not disclosed details about Summers’ departure package or whether termination was considered. For now, he will remain on leave and will not teach or take on new students before his retirement becomes official.
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