Economist Larry Summers will resign from his tenured job as a professor at Harvard College, the varsity introduced on Feb. 25, 2026, following heightened scrutiny of his ties with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Summers will go away on the finish of the 2025-26 tutorial yr, with a brand new title: president emeritus.
It’s a gentle touchdown for his fall from grace.
In November 2025, Harvard launched an investigation of Summers, a former U.S. Treasury secretary who beforehand served as Harvard’s president.
The probe appeared into whether or not Summers and different members of Harvard’s college and administration had interactions with Epstein that violated its guidelines on accepting gifts and must be topic to disciplinary motion. Summers’ resignation is connected with this ongoing investigation, a Harvard spokesperson advised The Hill.
Regardless of repeated calls by college students for Harvard to revoke Summers’ tenure, he held onto his educating and tutorial appointments at Harvard till he selected to retire. College students and workers additionally called for his resignation in 2005 following his disparaging feedback about ladies in science.
“Freed from formal duty, as President Emeritus and a retired professor, I look ahead in time to partaking in analysis, evaluation, and commentary on a variety of worldwide financial points,” Summers said in a statement launched on Feb. 25.
Not shocked
As a female economist and a board member of the Committee on the Standing of Girls within the Economics Occupation—a standing committee of the American Financial Affiliation—I wasn’t shocked by the revelations of Summers’ obvious chumminess with Epstein, surprising as they could seem.
In spite of everything, it was Summers’ disparaging remarks about what he mentioned was women’s relative inability to do math that led him to agree to relinquish the Harvard presidency in 2006.
And for years, researchers have documented the gender bias that pervades the sector of economics.
The title of president emeritus is honorary. It brings with it symbolic recognition and the opportunity to maintain a formal connection to the university. Emeritus standing is selective and requires approval at most universities. It’s normally bestowed on retiring professors.
For my part, by conferring this title on Summers, Harvard is signaling that highly effective males can outlast gross misconduct with their honorifics intact.
Summers’ ties to Epstein
Summers, till his entanglement within the Epstein scandal got here to mild, was among the many nation’s most influential economists.
However his historical past of public controversy stretches again to no less than 1991, when a memo he wrote whereas serving because the World Financial institution’s chief economist appeared to justify sending toxic waste to poorer countries.
Criticism of Summers surged after the Home of Representatives launched damning messages between Summers and Epstein as a part of a dump of more than 20,000 public documents from Epstein’s property in November 2025.
A collection of emails and texts documented how Summers repeatedly sought Epstein’s recommendation whereas pursuing an intimate relationship with a lady he was mentoring—whereas the economist was married to another person.
Summers was shut sufficient to Epstein that in 2014, the intercourse offender named the economist as a backup executor for his estate.
The Division of Justice launched a a lot bigger tranche of documents in January 2026 in compliance with a law passed by Congress. To this point, no main media outlet has reported on any new Summers supplies found in consequence.
Harvard’s gradual response
The Summers-Epstein exchanges launched in November ignited a new round of scrutiny and led to the unraveling of Summers’ prestigious career.
Summers went on leave from teaching at Harvard on Nov. 19 and stepped down from several high-profile boards.
However past launching the investigation, Harvard took no decisive motion to self-discipline or sanction Summers. This calculated hesitation, which displays the establishment’s efforts to courtroom funding, energy and affect amongst high donors, seems to have put donor politics above fundamental accountability.
In contrast, the American Financial Affiliation, the first skilled affiliation for economists, did take swift and harsh motion. In an unprecedented transfer, on Dec. 2, 2025, the AEA introduced that it had placed a lifetime ban on Summers from all its conferences and different actions.
Having a number of firm
To make sure, Harvard shouldn’t be the one prestigious college coping with the aftermath of the Epstein revelations.
The Epstein paperwork embrace proof that directors and professors at different prestigious faculties and universities like Duke, Yale, Bard, Princeton, and Columbia also exchanged messages with Epstein.
As public funding for greater schooling has eroded, universities have more and more turned to wealthy donors to underwrite major projects and complement budgets by endowing professorships and analysis facilities. Epstein seems to have taken benefit of this dependence on wealthy supporters by presenting himself as somebody who may ship each his personal cash and access to other affluent donors.
The Epstein recordsdata uncovered many electronic mail exchanges, conferences, and discussions with the intercourse offender about analysis and funding alternatives, and so they demonstrated how completely the man had embedded himself in academic circles.
Disturbingly, Summers was hardly the one scholar to solicit Epstein’s assist in pursuing ladies.
Amongst others, Duke University economist Dan Ariely requested him for the contact data of a “redhead” he had met, and Yale pc scientist David Gelernter advised Epstein a few lady he referred to as a “v small goodlooking blonde.”
An economics drawback
Whereas Summers’ habits and the reported dynamics between him and a woman he mentored might seem surprising, they’re all too widespread in economics. For years, researchers have been documenting the gender bias that pervades the career.
The information exhibits that abuse of energy is widespread amongst male economists.
A 2019 survey by the AEA documented widespread sexual discrimination and harassment. Nearly half of the ladies surveyed mentioned that that they had skilled sexual discrimination, and 43% reported having skilled offensive sexual habits from one other economist—virtually all the time males.
Additionally, a 2021 research revealed by the Nationwide Bureau of Financial Analysis documented hostile environments in economics seminars, with feminine presenters experiencing extra interruptions and encountering extra patronizing habits.
In 2024, in accordance with the Nationwide Science Basis, about 1 in 3 newly minted economics Ph.D.s within the U.S. have been ladies, a considerably lower share than in different social sciences, enterprise, the humanities, and scientific disciplines. This ratio has changed very little since 1995.
After incomes doctoral levels in economics, ladies face a leaky pipeline in the tenure track, which represents the highest-paid, most safe, and prestigious tutorial jobs. The upper the rank, the decrease the illustration of girls.
The gender gap is wider in influential positions, equivalent to economics department chairs and the editorial board members of economics journals. Girls are additionally considerably underrepresented as authors in the top economics journals.
This bias not solely hurts ladies who’re economists; it may possibly additionally hamper policymaking by limiting the vary of views that inform financial choices.
Permitting a gentle touchdown
Permitting Summers to begin a dignified retirement whereas persevering with to carry honorifics dangers signaling that there are finally few penalties on the very high in greater schooling.
I consider that if faculties and universities need to show that they’re critical about confronting abuses of energy inside their ranks, they have to present that status doesn’t entitle anybody, nevertheless achieved, to a gentle touchdown.
Parts of this text appeared in a associated article published on Dec. 2, 2025.
Yana van der Meulen Rodgers is a professor of labor research at Rutgers University.
This text is republished from The Conversation below a Inventive Commons license. Learn the original article.
