\n<\/p>\n
Summers has said he is \u201cdeeply ashamed\u201d of his actions and takes responsibility for continuing to communicate with Epstein.<\/p>\n
Kevin Dietsch\/Staff\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Former Harvard University president Larry Summers will resign from his faculty position at the end of this academic year and will remain on leave until then, a university spokesperson confirmed to The Harvard Crimson<\/em> <\/em>on Wednesday. The decision is the latest of Summers\u2019s efforts to scale back his public commitments after the extent of his longtime friendship with the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was revealed. <\/p>\n In a statement to the Crimson<\/em>, Harvard\u2019s student newspaper, Summers said the decision was \u201cdifficult\u201d and that he was \u201cgrateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with since coming to Harvard as a graduate student 50 years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFree of formal responsibility, as President Emeritus and a retired professor, I look forward in time to engaging in research, analysis, and commentary on a range of global economic issues,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Summers corresponded with Epstein for years after his 2008 conviction, at one point seeking advice about how to pursue a younger colleague and calling Epstein a \u201cvery good wingman.\u201d Over the last several months, Summers has also stepped down from his teaching role at Harvard and resigned from the OpenAI Board of Directors. The New York Times <\/em>declined to renew his contract with the Opinion section,<\/em> the Center for American Progress ended his fellowship and Summers stepped away from an advising role at the policy research center Budget Lab at Yale University. In past public remarks, Summers has said he is \u201cdeeply ashamed\u201d of his actions and takes responsibility for continuing to communicate with Epstein after he was convicted of soliciting sex from a minor in 2008. Summers has not been implicated in any of Epstein\u2019s crimes.<\/p>\n Richard Axel, a professor of pathology and biochemistry at Columbia University, announced Tuesday he would step down from his role as co-director of the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute to \u201cfocus on research and teaching in my lab.\u201d He will also resign from his role as an investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute.<\/p>\n Axel first got to know Epstein in the 1980s, The New York Times<\/em> reported. In a 2007 New York <\/em>magazine profile about Epstein, Axel described him as \u201cextremely smart and probing\u201d and said, \u201cHe has the ability to make connections that other minds can\u2019t make.\u201d Axel also had dinner with Epstein and helped the children of Epstein\u2019s associates try to gain admission to Columbia. Axel has not been implicated in any criminal activity.<\/p>\n \u201cMy past association with Jeffrey Epstein was a serious error in judgment, which I deeply regret,\u201d Axel wrote in a statement. \u201cI apologize for compromising the trust of my friends, students, and colleagues. I recognize the problems this has caused, and I will work to restore this trust. What has emerged about Epstein\u2019s appalling conduct, the harm that he has caused to so many people, makes my association with him all the more painful and inexcusable.\u201d<\/p>\n Also in recent weeks, Bard University announced it had opened an external investigation into the communication between Epstein and university president Leon Botstein. The university is also delaying a New York gala celebrating Botstein. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Summers has said he is \u201cdeeply ashamed\u201d of his actions and takes responsibility for continuing to communicate with Epstein. Kevin Dietsch\/Staff\/Getty Images Former Harvard University president Larry Summers will resign from his faculty position at the end of this academic year and will remain on leave until then, a university spokesperson confirmed to The Harvard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[3771,3703,3851,3093,3582,557,6059],"class_list":{"0":"post-45251","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-continues","9":"tag-epstein","10":"tag-fallout","11":"tag-files","12":"tag-larry","13":"tag-resigns","14":"tag-summers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}