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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 after 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 enslaved 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 reported 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, citing frustrations that administrators were hindering descendant outreach and rushing their process. Then, the initiative’s executive director left in June after her departure from the University was negotiated by an HR representative.
During the fall, the initiative brought on new leadership for its memorial committee, started the search for a new director, and established an advisory council that 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 neil.shah@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @neilhshah15.
