Harvard University Disbands Slavery Remembrance Program, Fires Staff

On Jan. 23, Harvard University informed all staff members of the now-disbanded Harvard University Slavery Remembrance Program (HSRP) that they had been fired. The program, which managed a $100 million endowment for the Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery initiative, was responsible for identifying descendants of individuals enslaved by the university’s founders. According to the Harvard Crimson, the university has outsourced the job to a New England non-profit organization, American Ancestors, best known for its 10 Million Names project. The group is currently one of the external research partners of the university, and will now lead the project to identify direct descendants of the founders of the Ivy League university. The move, per their reporting, came suddenly at approximately 11 a.m. and was not accompanied by any advance warning or discussion of any potential layoffs, according to HSRP Director Richard J. Cellini and research fellow Wayne J. Tucker. One week prior to their firing, Cellini and his team met with the prime minister and governor general of Antigua and Barbuda for the purposes of potentially establishing a research presence there. The HSRP had discovered that there were several hundred people enslaved by individuals associated with Harvard founders between 1660 and...