Enslaved people photographed for Agassiz functioned as research data points

Evidence

The daguerreotypes were on display at one point but have since been stored away; replicas have been made for public viewing. This was the research paper that Meredith had asked me about earlier—and in it, she argued that since the “Harvard Seven” images were taken against their will to prove a quickly debunked scientific theory that Harvard’s employee Louis Agassiz developed during his tenure at the university, they were liable for the mistreatment of the “dataset,” in this case the daguerreotypes themselves, since they each represent a human being used as a data point. She believed, as I do, that every time Harvard uses those images—which are not anonymous—it violates the Belmont Report’s guidelines to protect an individual’s identity. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1019

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the Belmont Report as the ethical framework for consent-based use of human data and images.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s stated focus on property law as the afterlife of slavery; the Belmont Report is doing the ethical work that legal doctrine here elides.