Harvard University has started a new review of ties that its former president, Larry Summers, and others at the institution had with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, according to the university.

Harvard will examine a newly released batch of Epstein’s emails that include communications with Summers and others, The Boston Globe and The Harvard Crimson 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,” a Harvard spokesperson, Jason Newton, said.

Through a spokesperson, Summers declined to comment about the review.

Harvard released a report in 2020 about Epstein’s ties to the university, and Summers’ relationship with him was previously known. But the emails released last week show that Summers had corresponded regularly with Epstein for years, suggesting a far more intimate relationship than was previously known.

Lawmakers last week released more than 23,000 documents belonging to Epstein, including emails and messages covering many years before he died in prison in 2019. They show that he and Summers often exchanged messages in 2017, 2018 and 2019, with Epstein sometimes offering advice about Summers’ relationship with a woman. The correspondence took place long after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to prostitution-related charges.

After the emails were released last week, Summers, a former Treasury secretary who was Harvard’s president from 2001 to 2006, said in a statement Monday that he was “deeply ashamed” and would be stepping back from public commitments. Several institutions that he works with, including the Yale Budget Lab and the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning advocacy group, said that he would be ending his affiliations there.

Summers said he would continue teaching economics at Harvard, where he holds the title of university professor, the institution’s highest faculty position.

On Wednesday, a spokesperson for Summers confirmed he would be stepping down from the board of OpenAI. Summers is also a contributing writer for The New York Times’ Opinion section on a one-year contract that started in January. A Times spokesperson said Tuesday that Summers’ contract would not be renewed.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Jin Yu Young/David Degner
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