Harvard must face lawsuit over 'horrific' slave photos -Massachusetts
court
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 [June 24, 2022]
By Nate Raymond
BOSTON (Reuters) -Massachusetts' highest
court on Thursday ruled that Harvard University can be sued for
mistreating a descendant of slaves who were forced to be photographed in
1850 for a study by a professor trying to prove the inferiority of Black
people.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled https://tmsnrt.rs/3xH6fPa
Harvard's "horrific, historic role" in creating the images meant it had
a duty to respond carefully to Tamara Lanier's requests for information
about them, which she said the university failed to do.
But the court said the Ivy League school does not need to hand over the
photos to Lanier, concluding that despite the "egregious" circumstances
the Connecticut woman had no rightful property interest in them.
The decision partially revives a lawsuit she filed in 2019. Lanier and
her attorneys, Ben Crump and Josh Koskoff, in a joint statement said the
"historic" ruling would allow her to "continue this legal and moral
battle for justice."
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Harvard said it was reviewing the
decision.
The images depict Renty Taylor and his daughter
Delia, slaves on a South Carolina plantation who were forced to disrobe
for photos taken for a racist study by Harvard Professor Louis Agassiz.
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Tamara Lanier looks up as she walks with attorney Ben Crump (C)
after speaking to the media about a lawsuit accusing Harvard
University of the monetization of photographic images of her
great-great-great grandfather, an enslaved African man named Renty,
and his daughter, Delia outside of the Harvard Club in New York,
U.S., March 20, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo
Justice Scott Kafker wrote that Harvard had "cavalierly" dismissed
Lanier's claims of an ancestral link and disregarded her requests
for information about how it was using the images, including when
the school used Renty's image on a book cover.
Kafker said Harvard's conduct meant a jury could reasonably
determine it recklessly caused Lanier to suffer emotional distress
through its "extreme and outrageous conduct."
"Harvard's past complicity in the repugnant actions by which the
daguerreotypes were produced informs its present responsibilities to
the descendants of the individuals coerced into having their
half-naked images captured in the daguerreotypes," he wrote.
Justice Elspeth Cypher, in a concurring opinion, proposed a new
legal claim Lanier could pursue to recover the images, saying her
allegations if proven "demand a full remedy and nothing less."
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi,
Bill Berkrot and David Gregorio)
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