Larry Summers, seen here in 2010, is resigning from teaching at Harvard University due to his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. File Photo by Andrew Harrer/UPI | License Photo
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers announced he is resigning from his professorship at Harvard University, according to reports, the latest high-profile individual to lose his job in connection with his association with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Summers announced in a statement that he will resign from teaching at the end of the academic year, CNN, CNBC News and The New York Times reported.
“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,” Summers said.
“Free of formal responsibility, 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 announced in November that he was on leave from teaching at Harvard as the university was investigating his relationship with Epstein, after documents released by the House Oversight Committee showed the 71-year-old had extensive correspondence with the financier.
Though Summers is not accused of any wrongdoing, the files showed that he corresponded with Epstein until July 5, 2019, one day before Epstein was arrested and charged with sex trafficking minors. Their correspondence also occurred after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008.
Epstein died by apparent suicide on Aug. 10, 2019, in a Manhattan jail cell while awaiting trial.
Harvard Kennedy School Dean Jeremy Weinstein accepted Summers’ resignation, the Ivy League school said in a statement.
After the files were released, Summers resigned from the OpenAI board of directors and The New York Times announced it did not intend to renew his contract as a contributing writer. He was also banned from the American Economic Association in December.
Summers was president of the university, but resigned in 2006, over comments he made about women a year earlier and concerns over his management of the school.
He served as Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and as director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama.
Summers is the latest person to lose his job, resign or be arrested in fallout from the Epstein files.
On Tuesday, Nobel Prize-winner and scientist Richard Axel announced he was resigning as co-director of Columbia University’s Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute, after files showed he corresponded with Epstein going back to at least 2010.
Former British Ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Britain’s Prince Andrew, were separately arrested in Britain on charges stemming from their connections with Epstein.
