Harvard Outsources Program to Identify Descendants of Those Enslaved by University Affiliates, Lays Off Internal Staff
Harvard University has laid off its staff in the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program, the unit of its $100 million Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery initiative tasked with identifying the direct descendants of those enslaved by Harvard affiliates.
The work will be continued by American Ancestors, which is currently one of HSRP’s external research partners in the work, according to HSRP Director Richard J. Cellini and research fellow Wayne W. Tucker.
Employees were notified Thursday that they had been laid off, effective the same day, per Cellini and Tucker. They were not given any advance notice of the decision and, according to Tucker, rumors of the program’s impending closure only began to circulate Thursday morning.
No additional reasons were given for HSRP’s disbanding, according to Tucker. Since September, HSRP has been a focus of public attention after a Crimson investigation reported that Cellini, the director, had accused Vice Provost for Special Projects Sara N. Bleich, who leads the Legacy of Slavery initiative, of instructing HSRP “not to find too many descendants.”
