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Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to the United States, Ronald M. Sanders, condemned Harvard’s decision to lay off the staff of the Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program, urging the University to step up its reparative efforts in a Tuesday letter to University President Alan M. Garber ’76.
In the letter, which was obtained by The Crimson, Sanders referenced HSRP researchers’ recent trip to Antigua and Barbuda, where they met with the country’s prime minister and governor general to discuss potential research collaborations. The trip was planned after HSRP identified hundreds of individuals who had been enslaved by Harvard affiliates in the island nation.
Sanders expressed “deep surprise and concern” at the sudden layoffs and asked that Harvard “ensure” it continues to investigate its ties to Antigua and Barbuda “with the same level of institutional commitment and rigor.” He also urged University leadership to directly involve the Antiguan government in its descendant identification efforts.
“The people of Antigua and Barbuda seek not symbolic gestures, but real engagement and meaningful action that befits the benefits that Harvard derived,” he wrote.
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In an interview, Sanders advocated for a “program of exchange” between Harvard and the University of the West Indies. He specifically called on Harvard to collaborate with UWI on climate disaster research and to provide high-achieving students from Antigua and Barbuda with scholarships to study at Harvard.
University spokesperson Sarah E. Kennedy O’Reilly declined to comment on Sanders’ demands or on the contents of his letter to Garber.
In a statement, Kennedy O’Reilly cited the University’s existing short-term partnerships with UWI, through which it has shared some online coursework and Harvard Library holdings with Antiguan researchers. She also referenced Harvard scholars’ participation in conferences and collaborations with UWI scholars.
Sanders said that, in the past, Antigua and Barbuda footed the bill for Harvard faculty members to speak in the Caribbean nation and that the partnership had cost the country “more money than we were getting from it.”
O’Reilly declined to comment on Sanders’ specific criticisms but said that Harvard is “committed to continuing and expanding this partnership, with UWI’s priorities guiding the direction of this collaborative work.”
Sanders said that despite the HSRP team’s visit to the country just one week before the layoffs, the Antiguan government had not been notified of the impending outsourcing of the team’s work to genealogical society American Ancestors.
“That is the worst discourtesy of all,” he said.
Sanders added that neither American Ancestors nor Harvard has communicated with Antigua and Barbuda since HSRP’s work was outsourced.
Antigua and Barbuda has long sought reparations from Harvard. In 2019, Antiguan prime minister Gaston A. Browne demanded in a letter to then-Harvard President Lawrence S. Bacow that the University repay the island nation for its ties to early donors who owned plantations in the region.
Sanders had written two other letters demanding reparations from Harvard before his Tuesday letter to Garber: one to Bacow in 2018 and another to former University President Drew Gilpin Faust in 2016.
Two weeks ago, Browne called on Harvard to take “meaningful action” on Antiguan public radio.
“We are not asking for favors. We are seeking justice for the people whose suffering built Harvard into what it is today,” Browne told the radio station. “Our ancestors worked for centuries without pay, and their labor fueled Harvard’s early development.”
Sanders emphasized in his interview with The Crimson that he was “not expecting Harvard to write a check to Antigua and Barbuda,” and that he was not seeking to humiliate the university.
“We don’t know what the answers to any of this is, but we do know that injustice was done,” Sanders added. “Wrong was committed. Harvard University was a beneficiary of all of that, and people from Antigua and Barbuda paid for all of this in blood.”
—Staff writer Sophie Gao can be reached at sophie.gao@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @sophiegao22.
—Staff writer Alexandra M. Kluzak can be reached at alexandra.kluzak@thecrimson.com.
