12-09-2016
Harvard University is the rightful owner of photos of enslaved individuals, a US court has ruled in a lawsuit that accused the institution of illegally and “shamelessly” profiting from the images.
The decision was handed down on Wednesday, March 3, at the Massachusetts Superior Court in Massachusetts.
‘Complicit in justifying slavery’
In 2019, Tamara Lanier sued the university, demanding that it return the images to her family, pay unspecified damages to her and acknowledge that it was “complicit in perpetuating and justifying the institution of slavery”.
According to the lawsuit, the images depict her family's ancestors, two South Carolina slaves identified as Renty and his daughter, Delia, who were forced to pose shirtless in 1850. They were photographed by a Harvard professor, biologist Louis Agassiz, to support the now-discredited theory that Africans and African-Americans were inferior to white people.