A Massachusetts state judge has dismissed a lawsuit from a Connecticut woman who said Harvard University illegally owned photos of her enslaved ancestors and.
The photos belonged to the photographer, not the subjects, the judge ruled.
March 5, 2021
Attorney Benjamin Crump, left, speaks during a press conference announcing the lawsuit against Harvard University. Photo by Kevin Hagen/Getty Images.
Harvard University does not have to hand over a set of 19th-century daguerreotypes, thought to be among the first photographs of enslaved people in America, to one of the subject’s ancestors, a Massachusetts judge has ruled.
In dismissing the case, the judge has ended one chapter of the lawsuit, which began in March 2019 when a retired probation officer in Connecticut named Tamara Lanier filed a lawsuit alleged that the Ivy League university illegally owned the photos and was responsible for a “decades-long campaign to sanitize the history of the images and exploit them for prestige and profit.”