Harvard University is probing additional faculty ties to Jeffrey Epstein after the bombshell revelation that former president Larry Summers, who told students that he will continue on as a professor despite stepping down from public positions, had corresponded extensively with the convicted pedophile.
The elite school will review a freshly released batch of emails between Epstein and Summers as well as others connected to the university, The Harvard Crimson and Boston Globe first reported.
“The university is conducting a review of information concerning individuals at Harvard included in the newly released Jeffrey Epstein documents to evaluate what actions may be warranted,” Harvard spokesman Jason Newton told The New York Times.
Former Harvard president Larry Summers seen here in July 2025. Leap Photography / Shutterstock
Jeffrey Epstein speaks with Larry Summers at a dinner at Harvard on September 9, 2004. Alamy Stock PhotoEmails released last week as part of a massive Epstein document dump showed that Summers and the disgraced financier had emailed frequently in 2017, 2018 and 2019, the year authorities say the sex offender died of suicide in prison.
The conversations included an exchange in which the longtime economics professor sought advice about a woman he was pursuing at the time, despite being married to Harvard American literature professor emerita Elisa New.
“I think for now I’m going nowhere with her except economic mentor,” Summers wrote. “I think I’m right now seen very warmly in rear view mirror category,” the Times reported.
He also lamented money he’d apparently spent wooing her, referring to himself as a “friend without benefits.”
Late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein with a Harvard sweatshirt during his visit to Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 8, 2004. Corbis via Getty ImagesIn response to an email from the woman that Summers forwarded to Epstein, the financier sex pest creepily wrote “she’s already beginning to sound needy :) nice.”
A 2020 review completed by Harvard found Epstein visited the Cambridge, Massachusetts, campus more than 40 times after his 2008 conviction, and was even provided an office and full access to a research center he helped establish, according to The Associated Press.
Summers has since stepped back from public commitments at the Ivy League, saying he was “deeply ashamed” by the communications with Epstein. He will continue teaching economics at the university, however, a role he’s held since 1983.
Jeffrey Epstein with Larry Summers and Alan Dershowitz. Alamy Stock Photo“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 activities for a while,” he told his economics class Tuesday, according to a video recorded and shared online by Harvard student Rosie Couture.
“But I think it’s very important to fulfill my teaching obligations.”
Couture captioned her TikTok post featuring the video, “POV your Harvard prof opens class by recognizing he’s in the Epstein files” with two vomiting emoji.
Harvard University located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. REUTERS“And in the emails released, he was asking Epstein for advice on a young woman he was coercing….. just gross,” she wrote.
In the video, Summers is seen seated at the front of a lecture hall alongside professor Robert Lawrence. A projection screen behind them indicates the men were about to hold a class discussion on “The G20: Multilateralism and its Future.”
He also stepped down from the board of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, and the Times confirmed his one-year contract as a contributing writer solidified in January would not be renewed.
Yale Budget Lab, and the left-leaning Center for American Progress, two other institutions Summers was affiliated with, announced he was no longer associated with them in the wake of the emails surfacing.
Summers led the university from 2001 to 2006.
Emails sent to Harvard representatives were not returned.






