--- alias: - Drew Faust - Drew Gilpin Faust - Drew G. Faust category: Scientists & Researchers created: 2026-09-25 location: Cambridge, Massachusetts relations: - end: 2018-06-30 fn: 1 role: 28th president start: 2007-07-01 type: head_of with: '[[Harvard University]]' summary: Historian and president of Harvard from 2007 to 2018 who barred Jeffrey Epstein's gifts no later than November 2008 without recording the decision, while donors Epstein introduced gave 9.5 million dollars. tags: - Person - DrewFaust - Harvard - JeffreyEpstein - MartinNowak - ProgramForEvolutionaryDynamics - Historian updated: 2026-09-25 --- Drew Gilpin Faust is an American historian of the Civil War and the American South who was president of [Harvard University](/organizations/harvard-university/) from July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2018, the first woman to hold the office. She succeeded [Larry Summers](/people/larry-summers/), under whom Harvard had accepted [Jeffrey Epstein](/people/jeffrey-epstein/)'s 6.5 million dollar gift establishing the [Program for Evolutionary Dynamics](/organizations/program-for-evolutionary-dynamics/) in 2003. Faust decided no later than November 2008, after Epstein's Florida guilty plea, that Harvard would accept no further gifts from him, but recorded the decision nowhere and did not formally notify the program's director, [Martin Nowak](/people/martin-nowak/). Between 2010 and 2015 donors whom Epstein introduced gave Harvard 9.5 million dollars. When she announced her departure in June 2017, Nowak wrote to Epstein asking whether he could "bring summers back."[^1][^2][^3] ### Career Faust was the founding dean of Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study before she was nominated in February 2007 to become president the following July 1. She announced on June 14, 2017 that she would step down on June 30, 2018. Her successor, Lawrence Bacow, commissioned the review of Harvard's ties to Epstein in September 2019.[^1][^4] ### The Decision on Epstein's Gifts Epstein gave Harvard 9,179,000 dollars between 1998 and 2008, including 736,000 dollars after his 2006 arrest and before his 2008 conviction. Harvard's May 2020 review found that Faust decided no later than November 2008 that the university would take no more of his money, but that she recorded the decision nowhere and did not formally notify Nowak, who understood that she opposed taking Epstein's money but regarded the question as "unclear." Between 2010 and 2014 Nowak and others sought to reopen it. In December 2013 the mathematics chair, [Benedict Gross](/people/benedict-gross/), and the divisional dean, Jeremy Bloxham, asked the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Michael D. Smith, to petition the Gift Policy Committee, writing that "Epstein has served his time for his crime, and that his wealth has been obtained legally." Smith declined. In March 2014 Gross told Nowak there was "a temporary hold on contributions from Jeffrey Epstein, although I hope it will be lifted by summer."[^2][^5] In the same period donors Epstein introduced, the Falconwood Foundation and [Leon Black](/people/leon-black/), [Debra Black](/people/debra-black/) and the [Black Family Foundation](/organizations/black-family-foundation/), gave the program 7.5 million dollars from 2010 to 2015, which paid its rent, and Black gave 2 million dollars for the geneticist [George Church](/people/george-church/). Epstein's accountant arranged gift letters permitting Nowak to spend the Black money on rent, and Harvard development staff thanked Epstein in December 2014 "for trying to expedite this gift." Epstein kept a keycard, a passcode and an office at the program's building at One Brattle Square into 2018 and visited more than forty times after his 2008 conviction.[^2][^6] ### The Letter to the President Epstein's publicists sought links from Harvard web pages because "it would be very helpful in terms of Google results if his name were attached to a Harvard.edu url," and in 2014 the program posted a "Friends" page on which Epstein was the only name. In March 2014 an anti-trafficking organization wrote to Faust objecting to "almost daily press releases" from "a pedophile [who] feels entitled to identify himself as a 'Harvard philanthropist.'" The program removed the page in October 2014 after sexual-assault survivor advocates contacted it and the president's office.[^7] ### The Succession On June 15, 2017, the day after Faust's announcement, Nowak wrote to Epstein at his personal email address: "drew faust (harvard president) will step down end of the academic year can you bring summers back? or dick gross?" No reply appears in the record.[^3] [^1]: "Drew Faust to step down as Harvard president next June," *Harvard Gazette,* June 14, 2017. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/06/drew-faust-to-step-down-as-harvard-president-next-june/ [^2]: Lopez, Diane E., Ara B. Gershengorn, and Martin F. Murphy. *Report Concerning Jeffrey E. Epstein's Connections to Harvard University.* Harvard University Office of the General Counsel and Foley Hoag LLP, May 1, 2020, pp. 3-5, 10-17, 20-23. https://www.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Reportconcerning-Jeffrey-Epstein.pdf ; https://ogc.harvard.edu/report-concerning-Epstein [^3]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00635064, DataSet 9, email from Martin A. Nowak to Jeffrey Epstein, June 15, 2017. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00635064.pdf [^4]: "Harvard Asked Its Lawyers to Review the University's Ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Here's What They Found," *The Harvard Crimson,* May 2, 2020. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/5/2/harvard-concludes-epstein-review/ [^5]: Lopez, Gershengorn and Murphy, *Report Concerning Jeffrey E. Epstein's Connections to Harvard University,* May 2020, pp. 10-13, on Faust's decision, the December 10, 2013 development-office memorandum, Smith's refusal, and Gross's and Nowak's 2014 exchanges. https://ogc.harvard.edu/file_url/208 [^6]: Lopez, Gershengorn and Murphy, *Report Concerning Jeffrey E. Epstein's Connections to Harvard University,* May 2020, pp. 13-15 and nn. 9, 15, on the table of Epstein-facilitated gifts, the gift-letter language on rent, and the statement of Black's representative. https://ogc.harvard.edu/file_url/208 [^7]: Lopez, Gershengorn and Murphy, *Report Concerning Jeffrey E. Epstein's Connections to Harvard University,* May 2020, pp. 20-23 and n. 16, on the publicist's requests, the "Friends" page, the March 2014 letter to Faust, and the October 2014 removal. https://ogc.harvard.edu/file_url/208