Ethical dilemmas in skeletal collection utilization: implications of the black lives matter movement on the anatomical and anthropological sciences.

Objective: The Black Lives Matter Movement represents a decisive turning point in social discussions of race and discrimination. This worldwide initiative to confront racial inequality has permeated various cultural arenas, including the sciences. The recent proliferation of protests centered around US skeletal collections' acquisition and handling of African/African American human remains exemplifies this shift. Methods: This presentation traces the historical scientific framework influencing and promoting the display of human skeletal remains in US museums and the often illegal and unethical means employed to acquire such remains. We will also explore how many US states legalized the collection of unclaimed bodies for harvesting by anatomical programs, which disproportionately targeted the poor; immigrants; and in-migrants marginalized by their race, class, mental health, and perceived criminality. Results: Given the absence of consent of many of the individuals currently housed in such museum skeletal collections, we propose implementation of a repatriation and reburial process influenced by the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and the work of Dr. Michael Blakey. Dr. Blakey employed a clientage model of public engagement to reburial projects that positioned the descendant community as the moral authority in deciding if and how research was conducted. This approach confronts the objectifying tendencies of the scientific community by requiring scientists to both listen to and follow the wishes of the descendant community as their clients. Conclusion: Such democratization of scientific knowledge prevents human skeletal material from becoming redefined as merely a scientific object and preserves the personhood of these individuals in both life and death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]