Yale University said computer science professor David Gelernter will not teach while it reviews his conduct, after newly released documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein showed Gelernter recommended an undergraduate to Epstein in an email describing her appearance. The university said it does not condone the professor’s conduct or “his described manner of providing recommendations” for students, and that the professor’s conduct is under review.
The university’s decision came after the U.S. Justice Department released a trove of Epstein-related documents in late January, according to the messages described in the records. The materials included correspondence between Gelernter and Epstein on topics including business and art.
One email, dated October 2011, described Gelernter’s selection of a Yale senior for a job connected to Epstein. In the email, Gelernter wrote that he had an “editoress” in mind for a job and described her as a “v small good-looking blonde,” language that was cited in the newly released documents.
Gelernter later defended that email in a message sent last week to Jeffrey Brock, dean of Yale’s School of Engineering & Applied Science, according to the Yale Daily News. The newspaper reported that Gelernter also forwarded the email to the student newspaper.
In his defense, Gelernter wrote to Brock that Epstein was “obsessed with girls” and said he was “keeping ‘the potential boss’s habits in mind.’” He also wrote that he had not meant to dishonor the student and said he had been “very glad” he wrote the note, the report said.
The university said students had been notified that Gelernter would not be teaching, including a notice that he would not teach a class on Tuesday. Kris Aziabor, a senior at Yale from Atkinson, New Hampshire, said students were initially shocked by Gelernter’s links to Epstein and the language used in the emails, and that they found it especially surprising that Gelernter sought to defend his past words and actions.
On Tuesday, Gelernter sent a message to students that again defended the emails and said the messages were the reason he was suspended from teaching the class. In that message, he discussed the 2011 email to Epstein, saying he was recommending a Yale student for a summer job with Epstein’s private bank and that the student wanted the recommendation.
Gelernter wrote that he and the student did not know at the time that Epstein was a convicted sex offender. He also attacked the way the documents were publicized, writing in the student message that the university’s “Smoking Gun” was “a personal, private email” taken from “the dump of Epstein files,” and saying “Gentlemen and ladies don’t read each other’s mail.”
Yale said it declined to provide a copy of Gelernter’s email to Brock, and it said it would not condone the professor’s actions while the review proceeds. Gelernter, 70, did not respond to emails and a phone message left at a public listing was not returned, according to the report.
Gelernter has been on the Yale faculty since 1982 and is known for work in parallel computation and for helping develop the Linda programming system. In 1993, he was wounded when an explosive package he opened in his Yale office detonated; authorities later determined the package was mailed by Theodore Kaczynski, whose bombing campaign killed three people and injured 23 others.
Epstein served jail time in Florida after pleading guilty in state court to soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. He died by suicide in a jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial in New York on U.S. federal charges accusing him of sexually abusing dozens of girls.