![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/b575cca861c4d8728efdaa575125289891-larrysummers-jaq.rsquare.w700.jpg\")
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Getty Images\n <\/p>\n
Lawrence H. Summers, the former Harvard president and one of the country\u2019s most renowned economists, is facing the worst scandal of his career after newly released emails showed him seeking advice from Jeffrey Epstein on how to seduce a young economic mentee long after the notorious financier\u2019s 2008 sex-crimes conviction. This isn\u2019t Summers\u2019s first time in the hot seat, as Richard Bradley knows all too well. The author detailed many of Summers\u2019s past scandals, his subsequent comebacks, and his unlikely path to becoming Harvard\u2019s leader in 2005\u2019s Harvard Rules: The Struggle for the Soul of the World\u2019s Most Powerful University. That book, with its account of Summers routinely butting heads with faculty and staff, largely predicted his resignation as president a short time later after public outrage over remarks denigrating women scientists. I asked Bradley to break down what the latest Epstein revelations tell us about Summers\u2019s ascent to the top of academia and politics, his public fall, and whether or not this is really the reckoning that many think it is.<\/p>\n
By this point you\u2019ve probably seen the video<\/a> of Summers opening his economics class at Harvard this week by acknowledging his \u201cshame\u201d over his correspondence with Epstein. Which has brought us to this sort of viral moment where Harvard students are noting that their esteemed professor is standing before the class and admitting he is \u201cin the Epstein files.\u201d It feels like an unthinkable moment for the university \u2014 how damning is this, reputation-wise, for both Summers and Harvard?\u00a0 And it sounds like he is planning on staying? It would stand to reason that it would also be the position from which he would try to launch a comeback again. The funny thing is that Larry Summers has been so damaging to the Harvard brand, not just in 2006 but earlier when he was criticizing the antisemitism that he saw on campus. It\u2019s an unusual thing for a former university president to criticize the university, and typically not done, because implicitly it\u2019s a criticism of the current president and it certainly makes the work of the current president trickier. And now again with his association with Jeffrey Epstein. And of course, it\u2019s not the first time that association has gotten him in trouble, but it\u2019s certainly on another level now.<\/p>\n The irony is that for someone who has always been so critical of Harvard, he needs Harvard. And so I think he will fight very hard not to lose that position. And it will be fascinating to see what Harvard does, because, you know, there are more emails to come. I expect that nobody knows. I imagine Summers doesn\u2019t know what those emails might contain. Harvard certainly doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n I know he\u2019s come back from so many scandals, from backlash during his time at the World Bank over a memo<\/a> about dumping toxic waste in poor countries to apparently questioning women\u2019s cognitive abilities<\/a> while president of Harvard. There are critics out there kind of celebrating this and saying, \u201cYeah it\u2019s about time.\u201d Do you think this is overdue? That was another thing you mentioned in your Politico column. There are some similarities between Trump and Summers. Barring any intellectual comparisons, they\u2019ve both weathered all these scandals and managed somehow to come back.\u00a0 The fact is Trump and Summers possibly have some overlap in terms of their criticism of both Harvard and universities in general. Summers hates \u201cwoke\u201d faculty; he hates left-wing students. This is not new. Summers is, of course, much more intellectual and learned, and smarter in many ways.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t think this started for Summers with Jeffrey Epstein. I think he has always had this kind of boorish, vulgar, and sometimes sexist side of him.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to try and get inside his head too much, but why do you think he did turn to Epstein, of all people, for these personal matters in the first place? You got into it a little bit in your book, this idea that he\u2019s attracted to power.\u00a0 To go back to your question, I do think I agree with you \u2014 his mind is a complicated place. So it is difficult to figure it out, but I think there\u2019s a couple things. There is this side which does not want to be a geek. He wants to be cool. And he definitely wants to be seen that way, to be leading a life where he kind of gets to do these things that are taboo and get away with it. I also think that Summers might have seen in Epstein another individual who had broken the rules, violated social norms, offended women \u2014 I know Epstein did more than that to women \u2014\u00a0and being marginalized, to some degree, as a result. And I think there might have been some sense of solidarity there. And I don\u2019t mean to suggest that Summers was engaging in the behaviors that Epstein was \u2014 there\u2019s no sign of that.<\/p>\n I think the most alarming thing about what he was saying to Epstein is that he described this woman as a mentee. How could he keep teaching at Harvard after that?\u00a0 Years after that scandal with the World Bank memo, he said he didn\u2019t want to be seen as weak by telling people it was a member of his staff who\u2019d written it, so he sort of fell on his sword. I do wonder if we\u2019ll see the same thing here: He won\u2019t want to be seen as weak and therefore won\u2019t give up without a fight? I think these two sides of Summers have always co-existed. I would say that there was always this quality of thinking that the rules didn\u2019t really apply to him. He would try to comport with them when incumbent upon him.<\/p>\n I see some of his critics arguing that he was wrongly exalted and that he has been wrong on economic issues plenty of times that just never got as much attention. He was portrayed as uniquely brilliant, but is there a chance that wasn\u2019t true? If you step back and say, Where has he been right, where has he been wrong? What are his big ideas, how much has he changed the field of economics? In what ways is he smart, in what ways is he really not smart at all? In what ways would you look at things he\u2019s done and say, \u201cThat was kind of stupid\u201d? Then the question of Summers\u2019s brilliance becomes much more nuanced.<\/p>\n It\u2019s the kind of brilliance that in a certain sector of the population is awarded primacy over other kinds of intelligence. For example, in the financial world, in certain parts of the university world, in the tech world, someone whose mind works like Summers\u2019s does, which is kind of like a computer, is really valued and admired and respected regardless of personal failings. But if people had said, \u201cWell, what about emotional intelligence, what about diplomatic intelligence, what about intuition,\u201d they would look at you and say, \u201cWhy do those things matter?\u201d<\/p>\n So it\u2019s not a well-rounded intelligence; it\u2019s a very specific and kind of narrow sort of intelligence.<\/p>\n I think that we have overlooked personal challenges and some of his intellectual mistakes because he walks into a room and we constantly award him that presumption of intelligence without really considering the nature and the limits of his particular kind of intelligence. So we\u2019re looking at an incomplete data set and concluding that it\u2019s brilliant.<\/p>\n What does that say about the politics of power today?\u00a0 Two of his uncles were Nobel laureates, as you mention in your book, and I wonder if in some way he\u2019s tried to defy that expectation of him.\u00a0 Can you see him fading for a couple years and then making a comeback?\u00a0 Sign Up for the Intelligencer\u00a0Newsletter<\/p>\n Daily news about the politics, business, and technology shaping our world.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n
Well, that\u2019s the $64,000 question, because the answer to it probably determines whether Larry Summers can retain his status as a university professor or even a tenured professor at Harvard.<\/p>\n
Oh, it does. It certainly does. The fact that he obtained that position after he resigned as president of Harvard in 2006 was essential for him because it was a perfect position for him to rebuild his career and to rebuild his image. It\u2019s not a position that requires a lot of work \u2014 Summers can teach a lecture course in his sleep. And I think the professional obligations of it, frankly, are not high.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know that I see this as some kind of karmic justice. Look, there are a lot of people who think that Summers is a jerk. And a lot of times he is a jerk. It\u2019s true. In my Politico piece<\/a>, I went out of my way to include that anecdote about the Winklevoss twins, at the Aspen Institute, saying he called them assholes. Because it has bothered me for years, the idea that a former president of Harvard would make a joke about former students and call them assholes in a public forum. It\u2019s like Trump calling someone \u201cPiggy.\u201d It\u2019s not right.<\/p>\n
They both appeal to a certain type of American constituency that is tired of nuance, tired of negotiations, tired of ambiguity. People who want a certain masculine, gendered masculine approach to clarity and \u201cboldness,\u201d and \u201cvision.\u201d There are people who like this style.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s celebrity. It\u2019s a weird word to use in this context, but there are celebrities in the kinds of worlds that Larry Summers inhabits, and he\u2019s one of them. He probably likes that more than he likes being professor, although I think he does enjoy teaching, and I think he values the field of economics and takes it very seriously. But if he took it really seriously, he wouldn\u2019t have had the career that he\u2019s had.<\/p>\n
I think that is really kind of a hard stop. You have Summers clearly articulating a relationship in which he seems to have no moral qualms with violating a standard of behavior that professors really do take incredibly seriously, even though some of them do occasionally violate it. So I don\u2019t see how he gets back. I think something that has not gotten enough attention was the fact that Summers and Epstein referred to her as \u201cperil.\u201d I don\u2019t know how you get over that, either. It\u2019s gross.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s not a chance that Larry Summers wants the first paragraph of his obituary to read that he was forced to resign from Harvard twice.<\/p>\n
When people say he\u2019s brilliant or how smart he is, they never qualify that with any sense of in what way he\u2019s smart, in what way he\u2019s brilliant. Which is to say, I\u2019ve seen Summers achieve two things: to be absorbing huge amounts of information, process it, come up with insightful conclusions about it, almost sometimes on the spot \u2014 it\u2019s pretty impressive. On the other hand, that perception of his being exceptional is heightened by the kind of oddness of his presentation and the certitude of his manner. Summers never says, \u201cThis could be true, but it might not be true.\u201d He says, \u201cThis is true.\u201d That mixture of an unquestionably formidable mind with these personality quirks that sometimes in popular culture are associated with genius, with an unflinching certitude of personal correctness, gets woven into this big ball of \u201cgood.\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think emotional intelligence is a particularly valued quality. The funny thing about this is that the kind of intelligence that Summers has, and that people like about him, is very much \u2014 and this is not my perception \u2014 a stereotypically male kind of intelligence. Like, \u201cHe\u2019s an asshole, but he\u2019s really smart.\u201d And so when Summers talks about women\u2019s kind of intelligence, to me the statement he\u2019s making is, \u201cIt\u2019s not my kind of intelligence.\u201d He really is a product of an incredibly competitive, masculine-dominated academic gladiatorial arena.<\/p>\n
One of my arguments in the book was that he\u2019s realized that he was not as fine-minded and of the same caliber as his uncles. And also that maybe this wasn\u2019t the life that he wanted to lead. One of the things I think really shaped him that people don\u2019t talk about is the fact that he\u2019s a cancer survivor. It was pretty serious, and he could\u2019ve died. And he was young. So I think there\u2019s a sense that he\u2019s escaped his fate more than once: cancer, losing his presidency, scandal at the World Bank. He\u2019s played with fire multiple times in his life. But I don\u2019t think this one gets extinguished quite so easily.<\/p>\n
There are people who would hire him. I\u2019ve heard people make the argument, \u201cWell, he didn\u2019t commit any crimes \u2014 maybe he didn\u2019t know the extent of Epstein\u2019s behavior.\u201d People inclined to like that sort of personality will find ways to whitewash this. I think the question is not whether he\u2019ll be able to come back; it\u2019s what that comeback will look like, and whether it will be satisfying for him, and whether Harvard has to be, psychologically, a part of that comeback. Because it still matters to him. As much as he criticizes Harvard, his relationship with the university and the prestige that it accords him still matters.<\/p>\n