Summers Takes Leave Amid Harvard Probe
Eliot University Professor Lawrence H. Summers is taking a leave from teaching duties and from his role as the co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government while Harvard investigates his and other affiliates’ relationships with convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The investigation follows the release of emails by a House of Representatives committee in November showing that Epstein remained a close confidant of the former Harvard president long after Epstein’s 2008 conviction in Florida for procuring a child for prostitution and soliciting a prostitute. Up until 2019, when Epstein was arrested for a second time on federal human trafficking charges, he and Summers discussed subjects ranging from politics to fundraising for Summers’s wife’s poetry program to Summers’s pursuit of a relationship with an unnamed woman described as his mentee.
Summers apologized and initially said he would retreat from public life while continuing to teach his Harvard classes. Within days, he announced that he would take leave from the University as well. Separately, the American Economic Association, the central organization for the profession in the United States, announced on its website that it had imposed a lifetime membership ban on Summers, writing that his conduct was “fundamentally inconsistent with its standards of professional integrity and with the trust placed in mentors within the economics profession.”
Harvard previously investigated Epstein’s history as a donor. The resulting report, published in 2020, found that the University had not accepted any gifts directly from Epstein following his 2008 conviction. But it enumerated several instances in which Epstein brokered major gifts to Harvard after 2008. Not mentioned was the donation Epstein apparently helped secure for Summers’s wife, Cabot professor of American literature emerita Elisa New, raising fresh questions about the thoroughness of Harvard’s earlier investigation into links to the disgraced financier.
Class of ’29 Reflects Racial Makeup Shifts
The percentage of first-year Black students matriculating at Harvard College declined for a second consecutive year, from 14 percent for the class of 2028 to 11.5 percent in the class of 2029, following new, court-driven admissions policies. The percentage of Hispanic or Latino students dropped from 16 to 11 percent while the percentage of Asian American students increased from 37 to 41 percent of the class, the College reported. International undergraduate student enrollment remained steady, despite travel restrictions on foreign students.
Following the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which barred race-conscious college admissions, Harvard does not consider race or ethnicity in its review of applications. Students can choose to self-report their race, with demographics made available after the admissions process is complete. Eight percent of the class chose not to report their race or ethnicity. Harvard did not release a figure for students categorized as white.
Grade Inflation Reaches New Highs
Grade inflation is worse than ever, Dean of Undergraduate Education Amanda Claybaugh explained in an October report, which said the letter grade A accounted for 24 percent of all grades awarded in Harvard College in 2005, 40.3 percent in 2015, and a stunning 60.2 percent in 2025. The proliferation of As has a variety of pernicious effects, the report found, including: limiting motivation to excel in coursework; preventing students from learning where their weaknesses may lie; impacts on course selection, as undergraduates seek to avoid jeopardizing their perfect records; increased stress, as students, unable to distinguish themselves from others in the classroom, seek to “distinguish themselves in other ways”; and a “hollowing out” of any sense of achievement in the academic sphere.
HDS Develops Strategic Plan
Harvard Divinity School (HDS), engulfed in turmoil over the war in Gaza when Marla Frederick became dean in January 2024, but also the beneficiary of a surge in applications, has developed a five-year strategic plan that emphasizes a commitment to religious pluralism. HDS’s planning document lays out four broad priorities: strengthen the academic study of religion; fully realize the promise of a multireligious academic environment; prepare students to lead in a multireligious world; and enhance HDS visibility, reach, and impact.
Yale chief to lead Harvard police
Anthony Campbell, the chief of police at Yale University, has been named the next head of the Harvard University Police Department. Campbell, who has a bachelor’s in religious studies and a master’s in divinity from Yale, was previously the chief of police in New Haven, then an inspector at the office of the state’s attorney in Connecticut before joining Yale in 2019. At Yale Divinity School, he taught a course titled, “Police Others as You Would Want to Be Policed: The Changing Face of Community-Police-Ministry Relations in the Twenty-First Century.”
Alumni Affairs Databases Breached
Databases used by the office of Alumni Affairs and Development were breached in a November phishing attack. The unauthorized access may have compromised the personal information of alumni and their spouses or partners, Harvard donors, parents of current and former students, some current students, and some faculty and staff. Harvard “acted immediately to remove the attacker’s access to [its] systems and prevent further unauthorized access,” according to a spokesperson for Harvard University Information Technology.
The breached databases generally do not contain Social Security numbers, passwords, or financial account numbers, but do include other personal information, such as email addresses, telephone numbers, home and business addresses, and details of donations to Harvard. An investigation that includes third-party cybersecurity experts and law enforcement is ongoing.
University Professors Named
Four faculty members have been awarded Harvard’s highest distinction, which enables them to teach in any faculty within the University.
Samuel W. Morris University Professor Catherine Dulac, a leading molecular biologist and geneticist known for research into parenting behavior in mice, has been appointed the Xander University Professor.
Frankfurter professor of law Noah Feldman, chair of the Society of Fellows and founding director of the Julis-Rabinowitz program on Jewish and Israeli law, has been named the Arthur Kingsley Porter University Professor.
Lee professor of economics and Lee and Ezpeleta professor of arts and sciences Claudia Goldin, recipient of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics, has been appointed the Samuel W. Morris University Professor, succeeding Dulac.
Hollis professor of mathematics and natural philosophy Cumrun Vafa, chair of the physics department, has been named the Timken University Professor. Vafa has developed topological string theory and uncovered holographic aspects of black holes.
Hazing Ruling Reversed
The Harvard College Dean of Students Office has reversed its finding that the Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra (HRO) violated the College’s hazing policy, after an appeal by several of the group’s members. The organization had been disciplined following a complaint about a September retreat. Sanctions against the HRO remained in place for the rest of the fall semester because the group failed to properly register a social event and provided alcohol to minors.
