Harvard

Release of documents show close relationship between high-profile economist and disgraced sex offender.

Former United States Treasury Secretary Larry Summers says he will resign as a professor at Harvard University at the end of the semester after revelations of his close relationship with disgraced sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Summers, a longtime influential figure in economic policymaking circles and a former president of Harvard, said on Wednesday that he would resign from teaching at the end of the academic year.

“In connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the government, Harvard Kennedy School Dean Jeremy Weinstein has accepted Professor Lawrence H Summers’ resignation from his leadership position as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government,” Harvard spokesperson Jason Newton said in a statement.

Documents released as part of an effort to bring greater transparency to Epstein’s relationships with powerbrokers in politics, business and culture shed light on Summers’s extensive correspondence with Epstein, whom he once emailed asking for advice on wooing women.

Summers, who has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crime, previously resigned from the board of the company OpenAI over his ties to Epstein, with whom he remained in contact as late as July 2019.

“I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr Epstein,” Summers said in a statement to US media after releases of Epstein files in November, at which time Harvard announced a review of those named in the documents, which were compiled during criminal investigations of Epstein.

Documents released in December also showed that Summers had been designated as a successor executor in a 2014 draft of Epstein’s will, according to the student newspaper The Harvard Crimson. The paper reported that a spokesperson for Summers denied any knowledge of the matter.

Feb. 13 (UPI) — The Department of Justice sued Harvard University on Friday for failing to hand over documents for an investigation into whether its admissions process discriminates against white people.

The Justice Department said its investigation is to determine if the Ivy League school is complying with the 2023 Supreme Court decision to ban affirmative action in higher education admissions. The investigation was launched in April and was to determine if the school’s admissions process for its undergraduate, law and medical schools follows the decision.

Harvard has said it follows the Supreme Court ruling.

“Under President [Donald] Trump’s leadership, this Department of Justice is demanding better from our nation’s educational institutions,” The Hill reported Attorney General Pam Bondi said. “Harvard has failed to disclose the data we need to ensure that its admissions are free of discrimination — we will continue fighting to put merit over DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] across America.”

The university responded that it is responding to the government according to the law.

“Harvard has been responding to the government’s inquiries in good faith and continues to be willing to engage with the government according to the process required by law,” a Harvard spokesperson said. “The University will continue to defend itself against these retaliatory actions which have been initiated simply because Harvard refused to surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights in response to unlawful government overreach.”

The Trump administration had been working with Harvard to arrange a deal after the administration was seeking $500 million and reforms from the school, to end the pressure campaign, which included a freeze on more than $2 billion in funding, a civil rights investigation and regulatory changes.

On Feb. 2, The New York Times published a story that said Trump had agreed to drop a demand for $200 million to finalize the deal. That night, Trump made a series of posts on Truth Social saying he wanted a criminal investigation of the university and increased the demand to $1 billion.

On Feb. 7, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon would end its academic partnership with Harvard, calling it a “woke” institution that is not welcoming to the U.S. military.

Feb. 7 (UPI) — Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the Pentagon would end its academic partnership with Harvard University over what he called a “woke” institution that is not welcoming to the U.S. military.

In a video posted on Friday to X, Hegseth said the Department of Defense would end its partnership and work with the private university — which dates to before the American Revolution — over its alleged “wokeness.”

The move, according to a statement from the Pentagon, is “because attendance at the school no longer meets the needs of the [Department of Defense] or the military services.”

Calling the decision “long overdue,” Hegseth said that all professional military education, fellowships and certificate programs at Harvard will be formally ended starting with the 2026-2027 school year.

Members of the military who are already attending classes there, however, will be permitted to finish their courses of study, the Pentagon said.

Noting that the U.S. military has had “an important and often positive relationship” with the university for more than 250 years, Hegseth said that “Harvard is no longer a welcoming institution to military personnel or the right place to develop them.”

“Too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard — heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks,” he said, adding that “the school has become a factory for woke ideology and a breeding ground for anti-American radicals.”

Hegseth alleged that Harvard research programs work with the Chinese Communist Party, university leadership has encouraged celebrations of Hamas and allowed attacks on Jewish students, and that the university “promotes discrimination based on race.”

Harvard University has been involved in some way with the U.S. military in an official capacity since 1775 when George Washington used the university as a military base, according to The Harvard Gazette.

Washington basing about 1,000 soldiers in Harvard Yard followed Harvard students and faculty who had “given their lives for the burgeoning nation” in war efforts for 150 years preceding the Revolutionary War, the university said.

Since President Donald Trump was inaugurated back into office in January 2025, Harvard has been one of several universities to draw his administration’s ire.

This has included everything from protests against the war between Israel and Hamas, academic programs and federal investments it deemed waste and their introduction of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs to improve student and faculty life.

Hegseth noted in the statement about Harvard that DOD plans to evaluate all existing graduate education programs for active-duty members of the military at all Ivy League and other universities.

“The goal is to determine whether or not they actually deliver cost-effective strategic education for future senior leaders when compared to, say, public universities or our military graduate programs,” he said.