Smithsonian apologises for owning more than 200 brains belonging to ethnic minority people without consent
15 August 2023, 16:46 | Updated: 16 August 2023, 10:44
The world-famous Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC has apologised after disclosing that it was in possession of 255 human brains taken from people from ethnic minorities as part of sick white supremacist research.
The collection was acquired by Ales Hrdlicka, the museum's first head of human anthropology, as he attempted to prove his pseudoscientific theories about white supremacy at the institution.
An exposé by the Washington Post unearthed the dark origins of the collection - that the majority were removed upon death from non-white people who did not agree to donate their brains while still alive.
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One such brain belonged to Mary Sara, an indigenous Scandinavian who was committed in Seattle before dying of tuberculosis in 1933 - after which her doctor gave her brain to Hrdlicka without her family's knowledge.
Sara's surviving relatives had no idea that her brain had been taken and have now written to the Smithsonian to demand that the organ is returned.
Her distant cousin Martha Sara Jack said that the continuing possession of the brain was "a violation of anybody's trust or humanity.
"It’s inhumane. 'It’s not science anymore. It’s like barbarism or ghoulish harvesting."
Fred Jack, Martha's husband, added: "It's kind of like an open wound. We want to have peace and we'll have no peace because we know this exists, until it's corrected."
The Smithsonian has agreed to return Sara's brains to her family but refused to pay for burial and a headstone for the removed remains.
When the initial revelation of the collection's existence was revealed, leader Lonnie Bunch III said: "At the Smithsonian, we recognize certain collection practices of our past were unethical
"What was once standard in the museum field is no longer acceptable.
"We acknowledge and apologize for the pain our historical practices have caused people, their families and their communities.
"I look forward to the conversations this initiative will generate in helping us perform our cutting-edge research in a manner that is ripe with scholarship and conforms to the highest ethical standard."
