The Bonfire of the Academies

Debra Saunders on Nov 21, 2025

WASHINGTON -- Last month, a group of journalists and I sat down with Larry Summers before a speech he delivered in Washington, D.C., at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

It was an opportunity to hear what the former Harvard University president and professor had to say about academia and free speech.

After the House release of Summers' emails with the late registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, probably nobody will care what Summers has to say about academic freedom ever again.

And he's not going to be teaching at Harvard anytime soon.

Since the House Oversight Committee released the exchanges, Summers likely will be known mainly for his fawning friendship with the grifter financier who used and abused teenage girls.

As Summers' emails with Epstein made clear, the former Harvard president wasn't so bothered about Epstein's sexual assault of underage females that he cut ties with him. To the contrary, the then-married Summers turned to Epstein for dating advice.

Harvard had known for years that the two alpha males were buddies, but with the emails popping up all over America's screens, their ties were just too embarrassing for the country's oldest institution of higher learning. So while Summers first tried to limit the damage to his career by ending some of his roles, the Crimson is poised to leave him behind.

Summers also no longer is with the progressive Center for American Progress.

It is pleasantly ironic to observe that in the left's zeal to impeach President Donald Trump's reputation by mentioning Trump's long-ago friendship with Epstein, their efforts instead finished off Summers, who served as treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton.

Trump ended his friendship with Epstein in the mid-2000s, before Epstein pleaded guilty to solicitation of prostitution and to solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18 in 2008. He served 13 months behind bars.

Still, Summers and Epstein remained friends until Epstein's second arrest in 2019, the year he was found dead in a New York jail cell.

Here's the statement Summers released after he was caught and before he had to face the reality of his exile from academia:

"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. While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me."

Methinks Summers is ashamed he got caught.

He was in this rarefied orbit of powerful Democrats moving the chess pieces because they were the players.

As Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre wrote in her posthumously released memoir, "Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice," Epstein "relentlessly sought sexual contact with young girls who were strangers to him -- some who lived rough, terrible lives outside his gated compound -- and he never wore a condom."

While Giuffre absolved Trump of cheap-shot accusation, she sagely chalked up Epstein's behavior to "arrogance."

We've all met guys like this. They think they are, as novelist Tom Wolfe wrote in "The Bonfire of the Vanities," "masters of the universe."

Yes, they were so smart, so brilliant, so above the women and girls they abused that they left a paper trail for the House Oversight Committee Republicans.

Another black mark for Harvard.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.

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