Whereas the emails that Larry
Summers sent to the disgraced underage-sex-ring boss, Jeffrey Epstein, did not—at
least to my knowledge—involve Summers’ role as a professor at Harvard, Yale’s
David Gelernter, who had been wounded in 1993 by a mail-explosive that had been
sent by the “Unabomber,”—an event that I remember in person as I was a Yale
student back then—wrote not only on topics such as business and art, but also
to recommend a hot female student to work as an editor for Epstein. Specifically,
Gelernter had a Yale senior in mind—a student he described in the email as a “v
small good-looking blonde.”[1] Whereas Larry Summers apologized publicly
(and to his class) in late 2025 for his bad judgment in having continued to
exchange emails with Epstein even after the latter’s conviction, Gelernter saw
nothing to apologize for in spite of the fact that the flagged email pertained
to his role as a professor (in recommending a student). He was actually proud
of the email that he had sent as a professor concerning a student to the
sex-predator! The sheer brazenness of Gelernter’s self-defense reveals
something about the privileged mentality of Yale’s faculty—a mentality that is
not good for academia or Yale.
Defending his email in a
message to Dean Brock of Yale’s School of Engineering & Applied Science,
Gelernter “noted that Epstein was ‘obsessed with girls’—‘like every other
unmarried billionaire in Manhattan; in fact, like every other heterosex male’—and
he was keeping ‘the potential boss’s habits in mind.’”[2]
Epstein’s “habits” notoriously included sex with underage girls, and making
them available to other adult, heterosex adult men. Gelernter concluded
his argument with, “So long as I said nothing that dishonored her in any
conceivable way, I’d have told him more or less what he wanted. She was smart,
charming & gorgeous. Ought I to have suppressed that info? Never! I’m very glad
I wrote the note.”[3] That
referring to the student’s physical appearance can be considered to be dishonoring
her, especially as the reference was made to a man operating an underage
sex-ring for adult men, is a point that any reasonable person would at
least acknowledge. Gelernter’s blind-spot may have been cultured and maintained
by a very arrogant, self-entitled faculty-culture at Yale that would make a country-club
mentality seem tame.
Besides Gelernter’s continued
bad judgment—which makes Harvard’s Summers look good in comparison—Gelernter’s brazen
defense to his dean may point to or reveal a cloistered and privileged world in
which Yale faculty inhabit. As another data-point, not a few alumni who return
to campus to take advantage of the perk of being able to audit Yale courses have
reported (at least to one party in the Yale Political Union) that professors have
been very rude in rebuffing such alumni seeking to gain more knowledge. This
should be applauded and encouraged, but too many Yale faculty have the attitude
that essentially says to alumni, “Your turn is over; it’s time for the current
students.” Even if admitted to audit a course, many alumni are relegated to
nonspeaking roles—taking audire literally!—even as the readings are
required even for alumni audits. That the young students could benefit greatly
from the more worldly experience applied to the same reading material is
strangely missed or dismissed by too many faculty members at Yale. In short,
too many Yale professors refuse to view alumni as part of the Yale community. “You’re
not an affiliate,” has been the common refrain not only by faculty, but also by
their support/administrative employees whose affiliation at Yale is hardly academic.
One take-away is that Yale’s
administration could have been doing more to coordinate its alumni policies
with its faculty, but a deeper implication is that too many faculty members at
Yale may hold themselves as laws unto themselves—above being obliged to heed
university policies and being held accountable more generally. The arrogance
that comes with stature is not uncommon at elite universities such as Yale, where
even librarians and other support non-faculty easily assume airs of superiority
not only over students, but also alumni.
For people outside of academia
looking in, the the bad odor of arrogant professors can easily be associated with
valuing knowledge even though arrogance works against learning. In short, Yale
professors such as Gelernter give scholarship itself a bad name. Perhaps
universities such as Yale could improve faculty-hiring processes to include the
consideration of values, including humility, both intellectual and
otherwise. The knowledge-game should be open-system rather than closed shop—inclusionary
rather than exclusionary. Hiring scholars who are well-grounded more generally carries
the benefit of having a faculty that is able to stay grounded with respect to having
a realistic rather than a vaulted perspective. Physicians and lawyers tend to
be well-grounded with respect to what is realistic and common sense in the
sense of being helpful with respect to their clients; perhaps Yale professors
could be better chosen by the university. Maybe its deans could be better chosen
too.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
