Larry Summers has stepped down from his position as a professor and director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, following the release of emails that show his relationship to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Annenberg Media has confirmed.
“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,” a spokesperson for Larry Summers said in a statement to Annenberg Media.
The remaining three class sessions of the courses that he has been teaching this semester will be completed by his co-teachers, according to the statement.
The spokesperson also confirmed to Annenberg Media that Summers is not scheduled to teach at Harvard next semester.
Last Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee released more than 20,000 pages of documents from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, which showed Summer’s relations with Epstein up until March 2019, just a few months before his death. Summers and Epstein discussed topics of politics, women and Harvard-linked projects, according to the Crimson.
Immediately following the release of the emails, the former Harvard President addressed his relationship with Epstein to his class, shown in a video reviewed by Annenberg Media.
“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 in the video. “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.”
A spokesperson for the Center for Global Development and for the Peterson Institute for International Economics has confirmed to Annenberg Media that Summers has stepped down from the board of both organizations.
Multiple Reports also state that the former US Secretary of the Treasury stepped down from the board at OpenAI and The Hamilton Project. Summers will neither be a contributing writer for The New York Times Opinion Section nor for Bloomberg News.
A spokesperson for Summers declined to comment on Summers stepping down from his positions at these organizations.
According to The Crimson, Harvard will investigate the newly released emails to examine the ties between Epstein and other Harvard professors. Harvard University did not immediately respond to Annenberg Media for a comment.
John Millsap contributed to the reporting of this article.