Academic institutions celebrated Agassiz while deliberately overlooking his racism

Evidence

In all the publications I had read about Agassiz, there was a blind worship of his scientific contributions—on glaciers, and fish, and birds—whereas his racism felt intentionally overlooked. I was astonished to learn that there were buildings on Harvard’s campus named for him. This was a hateful man—why were they protecting and still celebrating him? — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 252

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels her earlier argument that the archive was designed to conceal enslaved genealogies — institutional protection of a racist figure is another form of archival shaping.