Harvard announced that longtime economist and former president Lawrence Summers will retire at the end of the academic year after newly released Justice Department files showed repeated interactions with Jeffrey Epstein. Summers had been on leave since November as the university reviewed his ties. The decision follows intense campus and alumni scrutiny and continues a wave of fallout across research institutions. At Columbia, Nobel laureate Richard Axel resigned as co‑director of the Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute amid similar revelations about friendly ties to Epstein. Axel said his association was a ‘‘serious error in judgment,’’ and Columbia’s leadership signaled further internal reviews. These departures have prompted multiple universities to reexamine past funding relationships and gift‑acceptance practices. Administrators and trustees are now confronting governance and reputational risk: several institutions face pressure to disclose donor vetting processes and to evaluate whether donations or collaborations crossed ethical lines. Legal teams at affected campuses are coordinating responses to alumni and federal inquiries while faculty governance bodies push for transparency on review procedures.