Relatives of children killed in Philadelphia’s 1985 police bombing of Black liberation group MOVE are outraged after learning an Ivy League professor had been using one of the teen’s remains as a model in a training video.
In a video posted online titled “Real Bones: Adventures in Forensic Anthropology,” Janet Monge, a visiting Princeton University professor and Penn Museum curator, holds what is believed to be the bones of 14-year-old Tree Africa and remarks about their condition.
“This is one of these cases where the material has some flesh on it, which, you know, is not uncommon, actually, in forensics,” she started, according to Democracy Now!. “In this case, there is some soft tissue which is actually remaining. And the bones were actually burned, as well. So, it’s got quite a complicated history.”
She continued, “The bones are, I mean, we would say, like, juicy, you know, meaning that you can tell that they are of a recently deceased individual. They have a lot of sort of sheen to them.”
Although the video is no longer available to the public, those who have already registered for the course can still access it, Democracy Now! reports.
After the bombing, the remains found their way into the possession of Princeton Anthropology professor Alan Mann, The Daily Princetonian reports. Mann was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania at the time he acquired the remains, later becoming a Princeton professor in 2001. The remains have been in his and Monge’s possession for 36 years.
A Princeton spokesperson confirmed that the remains in question have never been stored at the school, nor are they currently there. The school representative also revealed that Mann retired in 2015 and “Professor Monge is no longer affiliated with the University,” per The Princetonian.
On Monday, officials of the University of Pennsylvania issued an apology to the MOVE organization, acknowledging that they had been using remains of one of the children for years instead of returning them to the family, The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Princeton University officials also issued a statement acknowledging that storing the remains is a part of the “nation’s long legacy of racism” that continues to destroy the lives of Black people.
According to The Princetonian, school employees have expressed that they feel the exploitative handling of the remains and their use in an online class is “an ethical violation.”
In the summer of 1985, Philadelphia police dropped a bomb from a helicopter on the rowhouse where members of the anti-police-brutality group MOVE lived. The bomb ignited a fire and police ordered firefighters to let it burn. Eleven people, including five children, were killed in the horrific act, according to NPR.
