Amid Epstein Fallout, Summers Retreats

Harvard professors who co-taught courses with former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers this semester responded in sharply different ways to his sudden departure from the classroom when they briefly acknowledged the fallout from Summers’ emails with convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein in class on Thursday.

Harvard Kennedy School professor Jeffrey Liebman — who has co-taught ECON 1420: “American Economic Policy” with Summers all semester — condemned Summers’ conduct as “inexcusable” and told students Thursday morning he was “pissed off” and “repulsed” by Summers’ exchanges with Epstein, according to three students in attendance.

In the winter of 2005, just after their wedding at Elmwood — the Harvard president’s official residence — Lawrence H. Summers and his wife, Elisa F. New, traded Cambridge’s cold for a warmer escape.

But their honeymoon route brought them to what would, years later, seem a fateful stop: financier Jeffrey E. Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean, a place that would become infamous as the center of Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation.

Updated November 19, 2025, at 8:58 p.m.

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers will immediately leave his role as an instructor at Harvard while the University investigates his ties to child sex trafficker Jeffrey E. Epstein.

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers stepped down from OpenAI’s Board of Directors on Wednesday, the latest in a rapid retreat from his public roles following renewed scrutiny of his relationship with Jeffrey E. Epstein.

The move is the latest in a string of retreats for Summers, who has stepped back from positions at several organizations — including Bloomberg, the New York Times, and several think tanks — amid the release of hundreds of messages by House Republicans revealing years of his correspondence with Epstein.

Harvard students decried former University President Lawrence H. Summers’ relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein, with some calling for his resignation after documents released last week showed the two maintained a close correspondence until Epstein’s final arrest in July 2019.

Summers announced late Monday night that he would step back from public commitments while continuing to teach at Harvard. But more than a dozen students told The Crimson they thought Summers should also resign from his post as a University professor after the documents revealed his regular exchanges with Epstein over women and Harvard-related initiatives.

Harvard will open a new probe into former University President Lawrence H. Summers’ connections with convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey E. Epstein, after newly released documents revealed the two shared an unusually close relationship for several years, a Harvard spokesperson confirmed Tuesday night.

The investigation — which marks an extraordinary step to revisit Harvard’s ties with Epstein following a landmark 2020 review — will also look into all other University affiliates implicated across the thousands of documents released by the House of Representatives last Wednesday, including Summers’ wife and nearly a dozen other Harvard affiliates past and present.

Updated November 19, 2025, at 8:06 p.m.

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers will step back from all public commitments in an effort “to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me,” he wrote in a statement Monday evening.

Updated November 17, 2025, at 2:32 p.m.

Senator Elizabeth A. Warren (D-Mass.) urged Harvard to cut ties with former University President Lawrence H. Summers after newly released emails revealed years of personal correspondence between Summers and convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein, CNN reported Monday.

When former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers was pursuing a romantic relationship with a woman he described as a mentee, he sought guidance from a longtime associate: convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein.

In a sequence of texts and emails between November 2018 and July 5, 2019, Summers turned to Epstein for advice on his pursuit of the woman. Epstein was quick to chime in with assurance and suggestions, describing himself in one November 2018 message as Summers’ “wing man.”

The Justice Department asked a federal prosecutor on Friday to investigate ties between child sex trafficker Jeffrey E. Epstein and a list of prominent figures including Harvard professor Lawrence H. Summers, two days after the release of thousands of pages of Epstein’s correspondence.

The move came hours after United States President Donald Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi and other federal officials to probe Epstein’s relationships with Summers, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, and several major financial institutions.

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.

Updated November 13, 2025, at 6:27 a.m.

Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers maintained a close personal relationship with convicted sex criminal Jeffrey E. Epstein until just months before his death in August 2019, according to emails released by Congress on Wednesday.