Court rules Harvard University will respond to lawsuit over ‘horrific’ images of slaves

by Nate Raymond

Boston (Reuters) The highest court in Massachusetts ruled Thursday that Harvard University can be sued for mistreatment of descendants of slaves forced to film them in 1850 over a study by a professor trying to prove the inferiority of blacks.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court of Justice has ruled that Harvard’s “horrific and historic role” in creating the images meant the university had a duty to respond carefully to Tamara Lanier’s requests for information about the images, which, she said, the university did not.

But the court said the university did not need to turn over the photos to Lanier, concluding that despite the “outrageous” circumstances, the Connecticut woman had no ownership rights over them.

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The decision revives a lawsuit that Lanier started in 2019. Lanier and her attorneys, Ben Crump and Josh Koskov, said in a joint statement that the “historic” decision would allow her to “continue this legal and moral battle for justice.”

Harvard University, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said it was reviewing the decision.

The footage shows Renty Taylor and his daughter Delia, slaves on a North Carolina ranch forced to strip due to photographs taken for a racial study by Harvard University professor Louis Agassiz.

Judge Scott Kavker wrote that Harvard University “blatantly” rejected Lanier’s claims of an ancestral connection and ignored his requests for information about how he used the images, including when the university used Rinty’s image on the book’s cover.

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