Harvard’s president addressed the press about the images but ignored the family

Evidence

The students’ frustration and support made me hopeful at a time when Harvard was clamping down on their claims of ownership. Bacow was quoted in the press stating that Harvard’s possession of the daguerreotypes was not illegal, and that the Peabody Museum’s treatment of the artifacts was to “draw attention to the fact these people were not chattel. These were real people.” … He spoke to the press about Renty and Delia, but never to me. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1016

Categorization

• SHARE: The devastating asymmetry — Bacow speaks publicly about Renty and Delia as ‘real people’ while refusing to speak to their living descendant — crystallizes the institutional failure.