Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers announced he will retire from his professorship at Harvard University at the end of the academic year, as the institution continues reviewing documents related to his ties with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Summers, a former Harvard president, said the decision was difficult and comes amid sustained scrutiny following the release of government documents detailing his correspondence with Epstein.
No evidence of wrongdoing by Summers has surfaced, and he has not been accused by any Epstein survivor of misconduct.
The U.S. Justice Department has released millions of documents tied to its investigation into Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
Harvard said Summers’ resignation as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government was accepted in connection with its ongoing review of documents recently released by the government.
The university confirmed he will remain on leave until retiring from his academic and faculty positions at the end of the school year.
Summers had already discontinued teaching and stepped back from leadership roles in November when Harvard first announced the review.
At that time, he also resigned from the board of OpenAI.
Emails made public show Summers corresponded with Epstein until shortly before Epstein’s 2019 arrest and that the two dined together on multiple occasions.
The documents include exchanges in which Epstein sought to connect Summers with prominent global figures.
Summers’ departure comes a day after Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Richard Axel stepped down from his leadership role at Columbia University’s Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute following scrutiny over his past association with Epstein.
Axel will retain his professorship and continue research at the New York campus.
Documents indicate Axel was invited to Epstein’s private island in 2011 and later communicated with him about university admissions matters.
Neither Axel nor Summers has been publicly linked to Epstein’s crimes.
The developments reflect continued institutional fallout years after Epstein’s death, as universities review relationships disclosed in newly released records.