Harvard Faculty Disturbed by Revelations of Summers’ ‘Cozy Friendship’ With Epstein

Harvard professors responded with outrage to a tranche of emails showing a close yearslong correspondence between former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers and sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein, reopening an old and bitter divide between Summers and the faculty.

The messages released Wednesday, which span from 2013 through March 2019, convey how Summers regularly spoke with Epstein about Harvard projects, politics, and women long after the University cut ties with the disgraced financier.

Many faculty declined to speak on Summers’ messages with Epstein. But among those who did, the correspondence drew condemnation. For some professors, Wednesday’s revelations revived long-brewing criticisms of Summers — who resigned from Harvard’s helm in 2006 after years of feuding with the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

“The cozy friendship between Epstein and Summers on display in the emails is disgusting and disgraceful,” Statistics professor Joseph K. Blitzstein, who teaches Harvard’s largest introductory statistics course, wrote in a statement to The Crimson.

Some of Summers’ colleagues were shocked by the tight relationship between the pair. Summers’ friendship with Epstein has been well documented, but the messages released Wednesday showed for the first time how Summers continued to confide in Epstein in the months leading up to his death in prison in August 2019.

But other faculty members said that the news was not a surprise to them, given Summers’ long and conflicted history at Harvard. For Blitzstein, the “blatant sexism” in the messages was a validation of the FAS’s vote of no confidence in Summers in 2005 following his controversial remarks on the underrepresentation of women in science.

“I’m not sure what we’ve learned from it all,” Walter Johnson, a professor of History and African and African American Studies, wrote in a statement. “I think Larry Summers told us who he was a long time ago.”

A spokesperson for the FAS declined to comment.

Summers declined through a spokesperson to comment for this article, but referred to a Wednesday statement to The Crimson saying his relationship with Epstein reflected a “major error of judgement.” But some faculty clapped back at his defense.

That Summers maintained a long-lasting relationship with Epstein — even after the nature of the convicted sex criminal’s actions was widely known — amounts to not “just one lapse,” but rather a “character flaw,” according to Rachel M. McCleary, a lecturer in the Economics department, where Summers still teaches.

Other professors took aim at the broader relationship between Epstein and the University.

Harvard Law School professor L. Lawrence Lessig wrote in a statement that Harvard had underrepresented Summers’ ties to Epstein, letting other faculty and administrators take the blame for high-level personal and institutional relationships. Lessig, who penned an op-ed on the subject in 2021, added that it perhaps “shouldn’t be surprising” that Harvard has not taken action against Summers.

Epstein, who maintained deep connections with the University and its faculty, donated millions of dollars to Harvard — including a $30 million gift in 2003. The University stopped taking donations from Epstein after his 2008 conviction.

Many years later, after a 2018 Miami Herald investigation brought the scope of Epstein’s sex trafficking operation to light, Harvard conducted an extensive legal review of its Epstein ties. In March 2021, the FAS shut down the Program on Evolutionary Dynamics, which took in at least $6.5 million in donations from Epstein and remained closely tied to him until shortly before his death.

The University sanctioned Mathematics and Biology professor Martin A. Nowak, the PED’s director, after determining that he violated University policies through his contacts with Epstein and his use of Harvard resources to facilitate the relationship. Until 2023, when the sanctions were lifted, Nowak was barred from taking on new advisees and serving as principal investigator on any new grants or contracts.

Nowak’s case is the only instance where Harvard has taken public action against a faculty member for their association with Epstein. The University has largely stayed silent on Epstein’s connections to other prominent campus figures, including former FAS Dean Henry A. Rosovsky; Psychology professor emeritus Stephen M. Kosslyn; Harvard Law School professor Alan M. Dershowitz, who served as Epstein’s lawyer; and several major donors.

Harvard made changes to its processes for accepting donations in the wake of its internal review of its ties to Epstein, which was published in 2020.

History of Science professor Naomi Oreskes, whose 2010 book details the decadeslong campaigns by the tobacco and fossil fuel industries to obscure scientific research showing the harms of their products, wrote in an email that the scandal highlighted the importance of paying attention to the sources of Harvard’s donations.

“The continued press and public attention reminds us that — rightly or wrongly — we are judged by the company we keep,” she wrote. “It’s well for us to remember that some money really is tainted.”

Government and Sociology professor Theda R. Skocpol — who frequently crossed swords with Summers during his tense presidency — declined to comment on Summers’ case, but called the web of connections between Epstein and elite spheres “sickening.”

“This kind of mutually reinforcing corruption,” Skocpol wrote, “is what one sees in failing societies and empires in decline.”

—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at shawn.boehmer@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.

—Staff writer Veronica H. Paulus can be reached at veronica.paulus@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @VeronicaHPaulus.