Former Harvard President Larry Summers will immediately step down from his role as an instructor at Harvard as the university conducts an investigation into his ties to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, according to the Harvard Crimson, the university's student newspaper.

“His co-teachers will complete the remaining three class sessions of the courses he has been teaching with them this semester, and he is not scheduled to teach next semester,” a spokesperson for Summers told The Crimson on Nov. 19.

Earlier in the day, Summers announced that he would be stepping back from his public duties at the university amid new revelations about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, but he will continue to teach and recently addressed the Epstein issue with his students.

“Some of you will have seen my statement of regret, expressing my shame with respect to what I did in communication with Mr. Epstein,” Summers tells a group of students in a video posted online.

Summers has come under scrutiny after emails released Nov. 12 by the House Oversight Committee included exchanges between him and Epstein around 2019. The trove of messages showed Summers corresponded with the disgraced financier on a range of topics, even seeking advice for his love life.

He also has resigned from the board of tech company OpenAI. On Nov. 17, Summers announced he was retreating from his public commitments in light of the emails. Summers, who was treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, was later the president of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006.

Summers will also immediately go on leave from his role as the director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, which he has led since 2011, according to The Crimson.

Contributing: Melina Khan, Zac Anderson

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Larry Summers will leave his role as instructor at Harvard immediately amid Epstein probe

Reporting by Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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