Harvard professor Larry Summers resigning after Epstein revelations

Former Harvard University president Larry Summers will resign from the university later this year, as the fallout from his personal relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein continues.

Summers, who remains on leave following revelations about his Epstein ties, will formally end his professorship and other faculty appointments, a Harvard spokesperson said Wednesday.

Summers will also resign as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School and will remain on leave until the end of the year. He will not teach or have any new advisees.

The developments come “in connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the government,” according to Harvard spokesman Jason Newton.

Newton said Summers will not hold the title of "emeritus professor," an honorary label bestowed onto retired faculty.

News of Summers’ resignation was first reported by the Harvard Crimson Wednesday.

The sudden turn comes several months after Summers retreated from public view.

Emails released from a United States House committee in November revealed the extent of Summers’ chummy personal relationship with Epstein. In emails, Summers sought romantic advice from Epstein, as the married Summers pursued a woman he described as a mentee.

Those revelations led Summers to step back from teaching classes at Harvard and forgo all public commitments. He also stepped down from his roles at several prominent organizations and resigned from the board of OpenAI.

Harvard also opened a new review into the ties between the two men and any other faculty.

In late December, the Justice Department released another tranche of data from the Epstein files that implicated more names in academia, politics, business and tech.

Through a personal representative, Summers provided a brief statement Wednesday: “I have made the difficult decision to retire from Harvard professorship at the end of this academic year,” it read.

The economics professor said he 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.”

Summers’ statement added that "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.”

Summers served as Harvard’s president from 2001 to 2006 and was treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton. He was a Charles W. Eliot University Professor at Harvard, the topmost faculty distinction.

Harvard government professor Theda Skocpol, whose deanship of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences briefly overlapped with Summers' tenure as president, told WBUR Wednesday she is "not surprised" by the announcement.

"Despite his repeated failures of good judgment, this is somebody who has a lot to offer intellectual life and was a valued teacher by many Harvard students," she said.

She said Summers' tumultuous end at Harvard and relationship with Epstein may not be what he's most remembered by. Instead, his legacy will be his his controversial tenure as the school's leader.

"The verdict on him as a leader and an intellectual will be extremely mixed," she said.