In a way no one would have predicted, justice comes for Larry Summers
The sight of Larry Summers performing a public walk of shame is a shock.
The brash former Harvard president and treasury secretary has been in the middle of major campus controversies for more than two decades.
Yet he finds himself in disgrace thanks to a series of sub-juvenile email exchanges with his pal, convicted abuser and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, from whom he sought relationship advice.
It’s a little like Al Capone going away for tax evasion. Guilty, yes, but also maybe not his worst offense.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Summers said in a statement Monday. “I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.”
Of course, Summers is far from alone in being disgraced by his connection with Epstein. Their friendship has been public knowledge for years, with Summers aiding Epstein — a social climber with few peers — in ingratiating himself with Harvard.
The latest Summers-Epstein correspondence is surprising though. Surprising in the sense that few would have guessed Summers would seek relationship advice from one of the last people on earth you should ask about romancing women.
Specifically, the economics genius was concerned he was being played by a much younger woman he was pursuing.
“I dint want to be in a gift giving competition while being the friend without benefits,” Mr. Summers wrote in the email.
Ew.
His pal Epstein responded with a pat on the back, and reassurance that Summers, who was married, was actually in control of the situation. (Neither of them worry about grammar or punctuation in their emails.)
“shes smart. making you pay for past errors. ignore the daddy im going to go out with the motorcycle guy, you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring., no whining showed strentgh,” Mr. Epstein responded.
In the wake of the new revelations, organization after organization — from the Yale Budget Lab to The New York Times, where he had been a contributing opinion writer — announced they were cutting ties with Summers. He himself said he was “stepping back” from public activities, though he plans to continue to teach at Harvard.
Not everyone is sold on that idea. US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a longtime Harvard professor herself, has called on the school to cut all ties, noting his longstanding relationship with Epstein.
It’s a stunning downfall for a man who had weathered — indeed, sometimes started — many brawls.
Some of us recall his infamous 2001 battle with celebrated philosopher Cornel West. In an unpremeditated attack, then-president Summers basically declared that West was producing substandard work. That work included a string of best-selling books on race that had made West a star both in and outside the academy.
West vociferously pushed back against Summers’s junk attacks, but eventually left Harvard for Princeton. The sordid episode left a bad taste among a lot of Harvard’s Black faculty, who revered West and also saw how easily they could be subject to public attack.
Worse for Summers was the firestorm he ignited in 2005. Speaking at a conference, he declared that innate differences between men and women might well explain why fewer women achieved major careers in math and science.
The blowback was immediate. Nancy Hopkins, the legendary MIT biologist, left the hall while Summers was still speaking. Had she stayed, “I would have either blacked out or thrown up,” Hopkins told the Globe at the time.
Summers was also a high-profile foe of Claudine Gay, the university’s first Black female president. Though Harvard presidents are traditionally deferential to their successors, Summers blasted Gay just days after the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, claiming her response was insufficient.
Some say their beef went back further. Summers had been outraged when Gay, then dean of arts and sciences, came down hard on Roland Fryer, a Harvard economist accused of sexual harassment in a lab he was running in 2019. Gay suspended him for two years and forced the closing of his lab.
Summers emerged from all his major scraps — bloodied, perhaps, but unbowed. But the seeds of his downfall were there all along. He’s finally being held accountable — for emails he probably never gave a second thought to.
That’s strange justice. But I’ll take it.
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at adrian.walker@globe.com. Follow him @Adrian_Walker.
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