Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said he would no longer teach at Harvard University after his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were recently made public.
The scandal, however, continues to play out in his old classrooms.
A video posted on TikTok on Thursday showed a professor addressing a room full of Summers’ former students about his absence. The Harvard Crimson, the university’s student-run newspaper, reported that the professor was Summer’s co-instructor and that the exchange took place in a course Summers taught called “The Political Economy of Globalization.”
“As I’m sure you are all aware, Larry has decided to step down from his teaching responsibilities this semester,” the professor said. “I’m really sorry for the undoubted disruption it’s going to cause all of you.”
“We will miss his insights and his wisdom.”
In response, a student yelled out, “No, we won’t.”
A different student could be heard saying in the video, “Yes, we will.”
The professor, for his part, ignored both students before introducing the guest speaker for that class: former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.
The video was viewed over 4.3 million times in 24 hours.
That same day, a student group called The Harvard Feminist Collective began circulating a petition demanding “Harvard revoke Larry Summers’ tenure and investigate and cut ALL university ties with Epstein.”
Epstein was an American financier and convicted sex offender who killed himself in prison in 2019 before the start of his sex-trafficking trial. Epstein’s deep connections to numerous politicians, celebrities, and top-level executives, including President Donald Trump, have led to calls for documents related to the investigation into his crimes to be made public.
Last week, the House Oversight Committee released emails showing Epstein’s private messages with several prominent people, including top Goldman Sachs lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler and Summers.
The emails showed that Epstein and Summers had years’ worth of correspondence, including one exchange in which Summers asked Epstein for advice on how to romantically pursue a woman he said he was mentoring. As public scrutiny mounted, Summers said he would step back from the public sphere.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Summers told Business Insider in a statement earlier this week. “I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein.”
A representative for Summers told Business Insider on Friday that he had no further statement. Harvard did not reply to requests for comment on Friday.
The petition circulating among Harvard students calling for the university to revoke Summers’ tenure specifically cites the former Treasury secretary’s emails.
“With the newest release of emails, including Summers’ communication with Epstein about abusing power as a professor in pursuing sex with a mentee, it confirms what survivors and Harvard community members have said for years: Summers is unfit and unsafe to teach at Harvard,” the petition said.
Jessica Wang, an organizer in the Harvard Feminist Collective and one of the students behind the petition, told Business Insider in a statement that Summers’ tenure should be revoked to prevent him from returning to the university.
“Although it’s a step in the right direction that Summers has stepped down from teaching, he is still a tenured professor at Harvard. That means he is still employed by the university and could come back to teach a classroom in a year or two,” Wang said. “The University must cut all ties to Summer and revoke his tenure to take a strong stance against sexual violence and harassment.”
After Congress voted to release documents related to the Justice Department’s investigation into Epstein, Trump signed the order on Wednesday. The Trump administration had initially pushed back against releasing the files, which are expected to be heavily redacted.
