“A book in Harvard University’s library no longer is bound with the skin of a human being,” reports The College Fix.
Harvard officials decided to do so recently as part of the University’s pledge in 2022 to repatriate human remains.
Harvard explained:
Harvard Library has removed human skin from the binding of a copy of Arsène Houssaye’s book Des destinées de l’âme (1880s), held at Houghton Library. The volume’s first owner, French physician and bibliophile Dr. Ludovic Bouland (1839–1933), bound the book with skin he took without consent from the body of a deceased female patient in a hospital where he worked. The book has been in the collections of Harvard Library since 1934, initially placed on deposit by John B. Stetson, Jr. (1884–1952), an American diplomat, businessman, and Harvard alumnus (AB 1906), and later through donation by his widow Ruby F. Stetson to Houghton Library in 1954.
Harvard concedes that its Houghton Library “failed to meet the level of ethical standards to which it subscribes.”
In the past, student employees “were hazed by being asked to retrieve the book without being told it included human remains.”
Harvard apologized for a 2014 blog post “that utilized a sensationalistic, morbid, and humorous tone that fueled similar international media coverage.”
A note left in the book disclosed that the binding included human skin. But the library did not confirm this fact until it tested the binding in 2014.
“This book is bound in human skin parchment on which no ornament has been stamped to preserve its elegance,” said Bouland, the original owner of the book. “By looking carefully you easily distinguish the pores of the skin. A book about the human soul deserved to have a human covering: I had kept this piece of human skin taken from the back of a woman.”
The book is now “permanently unavailable to library users,” according to a library web page.
“We started placing restrictions on access in 2015 and instituted a full moratorium on new research access in February 2023,” a librarian stated. “Harvard Library acknowledges past failures in its stewardship of the book that further objectified and compromised the dignity of the human being whose remains were used for its binding. We apologize to those adversely affected by these actions.”
Harvard says it plans to work with officials in France to try to track down the identity of the woman whose skin was used on the book.
In other news, a Harvard fellow faces a long prison sentence for trying to overthrow a genocidal regime.
Harvard University President Claudine Gay was forced to resign in December after most of her meager published work turned out to contain plagiarism. As Tech CEO Steve Mur notes, she was guilty of “50 pretty clear-to-the-eye examples of plagiarism which would have gotten students kicked out, including ones that at least two original authors feel was academic plagiarism.”
The Washington Free Beacon reported that there were “dozens” of instances of plagiarism in Gay’s academic work, even before a January 1 report revealed additional examples of “duplicative language without proper attribution,” as Harvard’s governing body euphemistically referred to Gay’s misconduct. Harvard’s progressive student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, defended Gay “until the end, writing on Dec. 31, ‘President Gay Plagiarized, but She Should Stay. For Now’“.
