Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has finally agreed to step down from his teaching role at Harvard University.
Summers, 70, is being investigated for his ties to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He will leave his role as the director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School immediately.
“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 told The Crimson on Wednesday.
The university said Summers’ co-teachers will finish the remaining three class sessions of the courses and that he is not scheduled to teach next semester.
Summers has held his Harvard role, which focuses on studying policy issues in the public and private sectors, since 2011.
The Daily Beast has contacted Harvard for comment.
The decision follows Summers also stepping down from the board of OpenAI earlier on Wednesday after announcing on Monday he would walk away from his public commitments.
“I have also decided to resign from the board of OpenAI,” the former White House aide told Axios. “I am grateful for the opportunity to have served, excited about the potential of the company and look forward to following their progress.”
Summers was mentioned in the trove of emails sent by Jeffrey Epstein which were released last week. They showed that Summers, who had been married since 2005, routinely sought Epstein’s advice on pursuing women.
Emails exchanged between November 2018 and July 5, 2019, the night before Epstein’s arrest, show the pair referring to a woman with the nickname “peril.”
Over a seven-month period, Epstein finessed Summers’ messages to the woman, with the late sex offender referring to himself as Summers’ “wing man.”
