Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will resign from teaching at Harvard University amid a campus review of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the university announced Wednesday.
Summers, who has been on leave since November and whose name appeared hundreds of times in newly released Epstein files, will leave at the end of the school year, according to a statement from Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton.
“Professor Summers has announced that he will retire from his academic and faculty appointments at Harvard at the end of this academic year and will remain on leave until that time,” Newton said.
In a statement, Summers said it was a difficult decision and expressed gratitude to the students and colleagues he worked with over 50 years.
“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 said.
Summers served as treasury secretary under former President Bill Clinton and went on to lead Harvard as president for five years starting in 2001.
It’s the latest fallout from the Justice Department’s recent release of millions of pages of records pertaining to Epstein and his longtime confidant and former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. Resignations have rippled across the academic, legal, and business communities.
In Britain, former Prince Andrew and ex-diplomat Peter Mandelson were arrested because of their connections to Epstein and Maxwell.
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—Collin Binkley, AP education writer