Very troubling...if your photo causes someone distress you can be sued now.

Alan, seriously, there is more. Two brief and easy-to-read articles have been linked in this thread explaining that there’s more to it. Why not opt for facts and knowledge instead of uninformed opinions? Read them.

The ruling just says that she can sue Harvard, not that she will win. It was a long time ago.

So, a relative of a soldier whose picture of him suffering from wounds on the battlefield can sue the publication for publishing that photo because it distresses the family? There's got to be more to this case than just that. Otherwise, everyone would have a gripe about photos that are published.

I don't think that's a fair comparison. That would be a journalistic photo of something that had happened. These photographs depict people who were forcibly stripped specially to be photographed, to produce a publication designed to show them as literally sub-human. As slaves, they were made to take part in this.

I only know vaguely even who my great-grandparents were, but even if the only thing I knew about my great-great-great grandfather was that this thing was done to him, it would be a significant little part of who I was, and I hope I'd feel a duty to do everything I could to piss on Harvard's chips on behalf of my ancestors.

 

By the way, we're coming late to this debate. It's old news in Wikipedia's page on Agassiz:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Agassiz#Daguerreotypes_of_Renty_and_Delia_Taylor

From there, I followed a link to a short NY Times article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/books/to-make-their-own-way-in-world-zealy-daguerreotypes.html

..and it's clear there's a scholarly *book* on the case already.

 

It seems Harvard as an institution didn't commission the photos; Agassiz, the academic, did that. He then left them to the university's museum, who had them in an attic for years until they were discovered. The researcher who found them went to some trouble to identify the people depicted, but Harvard did nothing about finding their relatives.

I don't think that's a fair comparison. That would be a journalistic photo of something that had happened. These photographs depict people who were forcibly stripped specially to be photographed, to produce a publication designed to show them as literally sub-human. As slaves, they were made to take part in this.

I only know vaguely even who my great-grandparents were, but even if the only thing I knew about my great-great-great grandfather was that this thing was done to him, it would be a significant little part of who I was, and I hope I'd feel a duty to do everything I could to piss on Harvard's chips on behalf of my ancestors.

 

By the way, we're coming late to this debate. It's old news in Wikipedia's page on Agassiz:

Louis Agassiz - Wikipedia

From there, I followed a link to a short NY Times article:

The First Photos of Enslaved People Raise Many Questions About the Ethics of Viewing (Published 2020)

..and it's clear there's a scholarly *book* on the case already.

 

It seems Harvard as an institution didn't commission the photos; Agassiz, the academic, did that. He then left them to the university's museum, who had them in an attic for years until they were discovered. The researcher who found them went to some trouble to identify the people depicted, but Harvard did nothing about finding their relatives.

So pictures of Ukrainians shot dead in the street and treated like animals by Russian soldiers should not be shown in newspapers because their relatives may get distressed? Or how about ISIS videos showing them lining up civilian victims and mowing them down with machine guns. They should sue Reuters and AP and the NY Times? Where would this end? Shouldn't we be allowed to see humanity at its worst as well as its best?

Or how about Jews poisoned in gas chambers and stacked up like cordwood in Nazi concentration camps? Should Allied newspapers be allowed to be sued by the victim's descendants for showing this inhumanity? Or should the public see it so maybe we don't repeat it, just like the inhumanity of slavery?

Again, Alan, none of those are comparable. Read the facts of this case. Otherwise you’ll continue blowing smoke and not getting it. It should take you all of five minutes to read the articles. Why won’t you?

Alan, seriously, there is more. Two brief and easy-to-read articles have been linked in this thread explaining that there’s more to it. Why not opt for facts and knowledge instead of uninformed opinions? Read them.

I read one of them (the other is blocked for me) and don't see how that changes my points. To say Harvard made a profit from pictures made when slavery was legal, does not change anything in my opinion. What the plaintiffs are arguing is that descendants of slaves have a right to sue for the slavery of their forebears. I don't know if there;s been a determination in the courts that you can sue for those reasons. Even if it is determined that you can, the right to publish photographs under free speech rights should not be prohibited in any case. How else would the public ever see the horror of so many of the things humans do? It would give certain people control over other person's right of free speech to publish photographs, which is unconstitutional in America.

Again, Alan, none of those are comparable. Read the facts of this case. Otherwise you’ll continue blowing smoke and not getting it. It should take you all of five minutes to read the articles. Why won’t you?

Sam, why don't you explain what I'm missing since you seem to understand it better than I? I'm not infallible. Maybe I've msised something.

The images depict Renty Taylor and his daughter Delia, slaves on a South Carolina plantation who were forced to disrobe for photos taken for a racist study by Harvard Professor Louis Agassiz.

 

"Harvard's past complicity in the repugnant actions by which the daguerreotypes were produced informs its present responsibilities to the descendants of the individuals coerced into having their half-naked images captured in the daguerreotypes," he [the judge] wrote.

A Harvard professor, as an agent of the university, forced these slaves to strip and have these pictures taken to prove the inferiority of black people. Harvard has been profiting from the pictures.

 

I’m very appreciative that we have pictures from the concentration camps, as much as they eat away at my soul personally when I look at them. They are vital for history. Likewise, I appreciate pics of slavery for the historical record. Very important to have them.

 

But this is not that. This would be comparable to the Nazis having taken the pictures of Jews in the camps to prove them an inferior race, maintaining status as a highly-regarded institution, and now selling the photos they created for profit.

 

Damn right, Jewish descendants of these victims would have a right to be emotionally hurt by the pics and the situation and would have a right to sue.

 

Not in a mindless and uncaring reactionary world, perhaps, but in the world I want to live in.

 

The last words I care to speak on this subject.

I think the case isn't just about being offended by a photo. It sounds like there's a larger context that seems to have to do with representations Harvard made to the family and failed to honor that allowed them to sue and as part of their standing allowed them to plead damages of emotional stress. Like Robin said above, that doesn't mean the court is saying they would win that case.

Lawsuits like this are only shameful admissions by the litigants that their emotional health can be cured by bucks. I'd like to sue all the frivolous litigants for accidentally noticing their lawsuits while page scanning.

You may want to read the article. Not shameful at all in my opinion. She has a legitimate complaint and I hope Harvard at least gets embarrassed by their crass behavior

Alan, seriously, there is more. Two brief and easy-to-read articles have been linked in this thread explaining that there’s more to it. Why not opt for facts and knowledge instead of uninformed opinions? Read them.

It appears to me that many old white guys here can't bother to read what the real issue is.

It appears to me that many old white guys here can't bother to read what the real issue is.

Please explain the issue as the court sees it.