Former Harvard President Larry Summers has gone on leave as director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center and will not teach next semester, following the House Oversight Committee’s release of emails revealing continued contact with Jeffrey Epstein until 2019.
According to reports of his withdrawal that have emerged, Summers told his class that he feels “shame” for the communications and is stepping back from public activity while fulfilling his current teaching duties, with the remaining sessions covered by other faculty at the university.
As part of the fallout from these revelations, Summers has also resigned from boards at OpenAI, the Peterson Institute, the Center for Global Development, and The Hamilton Project, and ended contributing roles at The New York Times and Bloomberg. The resignations represent a massive withdrawal from society for a man who had been a leading public figure.
Reacting to the news, a spokesperson for Larry Summers desperately attempted to get ahead of the situation. The statement said, “Mr. Summers has decided it’s in the best interest of the Center for him to go on leave from his role as Director as Harvard undertakes its review.”
Additionally, in a video shown to the class to explain his decision, Summers offered somewhat more detail about his decision. “Some of you will have seen my statement of regret, expressing my shame with respect to what I did in communication with Mr. Epstein, and that I’ve said that I’m going to step back from public activity,” Summers said.
Concluding his thoughts, he noted that he would keep teaching, “… I think it’s very important to fulfill my teaching obligations. So with your permission, we’re going to go forward and talk about the material in the class.”
In another statement, Summers said, “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. While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”
"*" indicates required fields
However, the controversial administrator took a different line in emails to Epstein, as was revealed by the public release of those emails. “I’m trying to figure why [the] American elite think if u murder your baby by beating and abandonment it must be irrelevant to your admission to Harvard. But hit on a few women 10 years ago and can’t work at a network or think tank. DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT,” he commiserated.
Critics also pointed to his creepy text messages where he discussed attempting to foster physical relationships with his students. A message explained, “Think for now, I’m going nowhere with her except economics mentor. I think I’m right now in the seen very warmly in rear view mirror category.”
Likewise, another text shared, “She must be very confused or maybe wants to cut me off but wants professional connection a lot and so holds to it,” adding, “I dint [sic] want to be in a gift giving competition while being the friend without benefits.”
Comically, the two also spoke about Donald Trump. Jeffrey Epstein sent an email to Larry Summers, which read, “Your world does not understand how dumb he really is. he will blame everyone around him. for bad results. gary cohn in good place. as is jared. all others, not long for this world..”
Watch Trump call out Larry Summers and Bill Clinton for their Epstein ties here: