The revelations about the economist’s attempts to pressure a woman into a “relationship”—with guidance from Jeffrey Epstein—should finally disqualify him from teaching students.
Former US treasury secretary Larry Summers.(Nicholas Kamm / AFP via Getty Images)
Why does Larry Summers still have a job? Why does Larry Summers keep getting hired for jobs? What does Larry Summers have to say or do to prove to the world that he is unfit for having jobs?
Sadly, these are not simple questions. Larry Summers, former treasury secretary, former president of Harvard University, former head of the National Economic Council, is once again embroiled in controversy. Of course, with Summers, “embroiled in controversy” doesn’t tell you enough. Summers appears to be caught in an eternal battle between his mouth and his d*ck to see which can produce the most fireable offense. This time, the two forces have aligned in a series of newly released e-mails between Summers and his longtime friend, confidant, and sexual harassment “wingman,” Jeffrey Epstein.
Summers’s friendship with Epstein was already known. But e-mails released by the House Oversight Committee show the depth of their correspondence and relationship. While most journalists (including me) got stuck on the e-mail where Summers belittled sexual harassment and then told Epstein in all-caps “DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT,” the fierce reporters at The Harvard Crimson dug into all of the messages between the two men. Their report shows how Summers wanted to pressure a woman believed to be Chinese macroeconomist Keyu Jin into a “relationship.” Jin was a 2004 Harvard graduate (meaning she graduated while Summers was still the president of the university), who got her PhD in 2009.
By 2018, Summers was referring to her as a “mentee” in e-mails to Epstein, while the men gave her the nickname of “peril” (an apparent reference to “yellow peril,” because these men are the worst our society has to offer). The men discussed at length Summers’s best options to use his influence and position to make her have sex with him. The Crimson reports: “Summers went on to describe what he saw as his ‘best shot’: that the woman finds him ‘invaluable and interesting’ and concludes ‘she can’t have it without romance / sex.’” Summers and Epstein were still e-mailing about the woman… right up to the day before Epstein was arrested.
Anybody with a shred of moral decency would assume that Summers has been fired by now. Like, you can’t just be e-mailing the most famous sex offender in the world about how you intend to use your professional position to make a woman have sex with you, and then keep that professional position, right?
Well, the astute reader knows that Summers has not been fired. After the Crimson’s report, Summers apologized for his relationship with Epstein and said that he is stepping back from his public commitments in “an effort to rebuild trust,” but he’s not leaving his actual teaching job at Harvard University. Summers is teaching five classes this semester, including two large undergraduate courses. Apparently, this is still going to happen, despite calls from Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, a former Harvard professor, for Harvard to get rid of him.
It’s unlikely Summers will voluntarily resign his position. After all, he seems to think that having an impressive job with power over young people is the only way he’ll ever get laid. He’s also not really sorry for what he said. Just check out what he’s apologizing for: “I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.” He’s apologizing for communicating with a known sex offender, not for taking the known sex offender’s counsel on how best to bang his mentee.
Of all the jobs Summers has—professor, Bloomberg columnist, OpenAI board member—teaching young students is the job that he should never be allowed to do again. That’s been true since at least 2005, when he suggested that women are genetically worse at math and science than men.
Imagine you are a woman in an economics class taught by Summers. You have a question that was not addressed in your 500-person lecture, and you know that the boys in your class show up to office hours with the famous professor. Do you go? You know the man thinks you’re dumber at a genetic level than your male peers. You now suspect that he’ll help you only if he thinks he can use that help to get into your pants. Do you really want to ask Larry Summers your question? Or are you just going to ask ChatGPT, powered by Larry Summers’s failed economic theories, to tell you why ChatGPT needs a public bailout?
Harvard does a disservice to every woman at the university when it employs guys like Larry Summers and trots them out to lecture. And, yes, as I write that sentence, I can feel every woman who has ever attended Harvard University looking at me like my name is Christopher Columbus, because “guys like Larry Summers” are legion. The hypothetical I just spun is a hypothetical only to me and other guys. It’s the lived reality of most women, at most universities, now, then, here, and everywhere. Women are constantly forced to answer the question, “How do I interact with a male professor who probably thinks I’m dumber than his boy students and will probably try to condition his help on ‘romance/sex?’”
Larry Summers still has jobs because Larry Summers is exceedingly common. He’s not an outlier—he’s the freaking norm. He’s a guy in every C-Suite, on every hiring committee, in every mailroom. He is a man who has power and believes that he is entitled to convert that power into sex. That is such a standard way for men to operate that even other men who do not behave that way treat guys who do as normal and legitimate.
Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets.
Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.
As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war.
In these dark times, independent journalism is uniquely able to uncover the falsehoods that threaten our republic—and civilians around the world—and shine a bright light on the truth.
The Nation’s experienced team of writers, editors, and fact-checkers understands the scale of what we’re up against and the urgency with which we have to act. That’s why we’re publishing critical reporting and analysis of the war on Iran, ICE violence at home, new forms of voter suppression emerging in the courts, and much more.
But this journalism is possible only with your support.
This March, The Nation needs to raise $50,000 to ensure that we have the resources for reporting and analysis that sets the record straight and empowers people of conscience to organize. Will you donate today?
To put that in simple terms so that Larry Summers is able, genetically, to understand it: Summers is a tax this society places on women. He is their extra cost of doing business. And most men are willing to let them pay it. After all, most men know the tax means that they too can benefit as long as they retain some professional power.
Why does Larry Summers still have a job? Because other men think he did nothing wrong. Because other men do the same thing he did, just without memorializing it in e-mails to a famous sex offender. Because other men think that power entitles them to harass and pursue. And because until a few days ago, Larry Summers was just one of those “other men” making decisions to hire and platform men like Larry Summers.
Update: Since this article went to press, Summers has resigned from the board of OpenAI, and Harvard has announced that it’s opening an inquiry into his Epstein connections.
Elie MystalTwitterElie Mystal is The Nation’s justice correspondent and a columnist. He is also an Alfred Knobler Fellow at the Type Media Center. He is the author of two books: the New York Times bestseller Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution and Bad Law: Ten Popular Laws That Are Ruining America, both published by The New Press. You can subscribe to his Nation newsletter “Elie v. U.S.” here.