Harvard’s refusal to comment seeded doubt about Lanier’s ancestry claims in the press.

Evidence

Harvard refused to respond to any press requests. In the few stories that had been written about me and Renty, whenever the reporters reached out to Harvard for comment, they either declined or they maintained that I could not prove my claim. This was gaslighting, as the university was injecting doubt into the very people whose jobs it was to uncover truth. This was a consistent theme with news organizations, which inspired my mantra: “Might does not make right. Right makes might.” — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 333

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to reader’s interest in how institutions hold stolen things — here the rhetoric of denial as an institutional defense tactic pre-litigation.