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HARVARD OUTSOURCES PROGRAM TO IDENTIFY DESCENDANTS OF THOSE ENSLAVED
BY UNIVERSITY AFFILIATES, LAYS OFF INTERNAL STAFF  
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Neil H. Shah
January 20, 2025
Harvard Crimson
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_ Harvard University has laid off the staff of its 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. _

Harvard University laid off the staff of its 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., Barbara A.
Sheehan

 

_UPDATED JANUARY 23, 2025, AT 9:29 P.M._

Harvard University has laid off the staff of its 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.

Instead, the work will be continued by American Ancestors, a New
England-based genealogical nonprofit. American Ancestors is currently
one of HSRP’s external research partners, and they will now be
leading the project in full.

Employees were notified Thursday shortly after 11 a.m. that they had
been terminated, effective that day, according to HSRP Director
Richard J. Cellini and research fellow Wayne W. Tucker. They were not
given any advance notice of the decision or informed that the layoffs
were being considered, Cellini and Tucker added. Cellini was notified
of his termination less than one hour before the remainder of the
team.

The sudden move came just one week after HSRP researchers met with the
prime minister and governor general of Antigua and Barbuda to discuss
a potential ground research presence in the country. Cellini and his
team visited the island nation
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HSRP discovered “several hundred people” enslaved by Harvard
affiliates in the region between 1660 and 1815.

That number added to the more than 300 individuals
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by Harvard affiliates that HSRP had already identified. As of
September, the team had also identified more than 100 living
descendants.

Staff members were not given a reason for the team’s disbanding,
according to three people who were laid off Thursday. HSRP has been
front and center amid controversy at the Legacy of Slavery initiative
over the last few months. In September, a Crimson investigation
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that Cellini, the director, had accused Vice Provost for Special
Projects Sara N. Bleich, who oversees the Legacy of Slavery
initiative, of instructing HSRP “not to find too many
descendants.”

“I have told officials at the highest level of the University that
they only have two options: fire me, or let the HSRP do this work
properly,” Cellini wrote in a September statement to The Crimson.

On Thursday, Cellini wrote in a text message: “Today Harvard fired
me. So now we know.”

Harvard spokesperson Sarah E. Kennedy O’Reilly declined to comment
on the reasons for the layoffs, their timing, or on Cellini’s
criticisms, citing the University’s policy against commenting on
personnel matters.

In a Thursday press release from Bleich’s office, University
Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who is on the Legacy of Slavery
initiative’s advisory council, said American Ancestors’ previous
genealogical experience gave them “an exceptional ability to scale
the enormous effort the university has ahead of it.”

The decision to terminate Cellini and the HSRP team is the latest
installment of a shakeup at the Legacy of Slavery initiative over the
last eight months.

In May, the co-chairs of the initiative’s memorial project
committee resigned
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citing frustrations that administrators were hindering descendant
outreach and rushing their process. Then, the initiative’s executive
director left in June
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her departure from the University was negotiated by an HR
representative.

During the fall, the initiative brought on new leadership
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its memorial committee, started the search for a new director,
and established an advisory council
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included some of Harvard’s most prominent historians. Over the last
few months, the initiative has conducted a “strategic planning
process” to guide its future work, per an email from Bleich to the
advisory council.

Previously, HSRP’s internal team of researchers focused on
identifying connections between the University and enslaved
individuals, while American Ancestors helped them with genealogical
research and identifying descendants.

Going forward, American Ancestors is expected to “significantly
expand its own ongoing work of identifying the individuals who were
enslaved” in addition to the descendant tracing effort, according to
the Thursday press release.

In the press release, Gates thanked Cellini for his work and said his
“superb efforts launched us on our way on this historically
important mission.”

“Now it is time for American Ancestors to take the lead in what will
be a systematic, scholarly sustained effort to establish the facts
about this dark chapter in our university’s history, and begin the
long journey of healing,” he added.

_CLARIFICATION: JANUARY 23, 2025_

_A previous version of this article stated that the Harvard Slavery
Remembrance Program had been disbanded. To clarify, according to a
University spokesperson, the program has not been formally
discontinued, though its employees and leaders have been laid off._

_—FAS Desk Editor NEIL H. SHAH can be reached
at [email protected]. Follow him on X @neilhshah15
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_The HARVARD CRIMSON, the nation's oldest continuously published daily
college newspaper, was founded in 1873 and incorporated in 1967. The
newspaper traces its history to the first issue of “The Magenta,”
published on Jan. 24, 1873, and changed its name to “The Crimson”
to reflect the new color of the College on May 21, 1875. The Crimson
has a rich tradition of journalistic integrity and counts among its
ranks of editorship some of America's greatest journalists. More than
40 Crimson alumni have won the Pulitzer Prize; many of their portraits
line the walls of The Crimson. _

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