Victims of the Holmesburg prison experiment criticize Penn’s role and demand restorative justice

Content warning: This article contains mentions of harassment and suicide that may be disturbing and/or triggering to some readers.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School and several student groups organized a panel calling for restorative justice after harmful medical experiments conducted by the late Penn dermatologist Albert Kligman.

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The panel examined the legacy of Penn dermatology professor Albert Kligmanwho performed medical experiments on people incarcerated at the now-closed Holmesburg Prison without their informed consent. Some victims and their families told how the experiments changed their lives, calling on Penn to apologize and renewing demands that the university provide financial compensation and other forms of restorative justice.

From 1951 to 1974, Kligman tested viruses, fungi, and chemicals, including asbestos, on hundreds of inmates – most of whom were black – at a prison located in Northeast Philadelphia. According to a 1998 book by journalist Allen Hornblum, many prisoners suffered lifelong side effects, including permanent scarring, recurrent rashes and mental problems “Acres of Skin” who exposed Kligman’s medical experiments on prisoners.

The event was a collaboration between groups including the Black Law Students Association and UMOJA — an organization of Black student groups on campus — and Penn Carey Law. Penn Professor Dorothy Roberts moderated the panel and highlighted Penn’s unique position as a leader in “restorative justice efforts” while examining university-sponsored and historically sanctioned violence against marginalized communities.

“Penn’s tangible atonement for the Holmesburg prison experiments that we hope will ultimately come out of this event should be a model,” Roberts told attendees. “This is what Penn should strive for. We are to be a model university with the highest values.”

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Herbert Rice, an 80-year-old survivor of the experiments, said he began taking part in experiments at the age of 24 to earn money while in prison. Rice said he first took part in a “milkshake trial,” in which he was told to eat a milkshake and waffles as three meals a day, and three weeks later he decided to increase his involvement in the study.

Rice described increasingly disturbing experiments, including a metabolism study in which he had to take pills containing “foreign organisms.” which placed him in solitary confinement for three days.

“He put me there for three days and I thought I was there for three years,” Rice said. “…You get one meal a day. This one meal was breakfast, lunch and dinner on this plate and they would serve it to you and it would collapse so you had to eat off the floor,” Rice said.

He also detailed the nightmares he had about the experiments, which he believed fundamentally changed the way he lived his life – even when he was no longer in prison. He reflected on how the baggage affected his family life and led him down the path of addiction.

“I brought it all home to my wife, to my kids, to my community, and I acted like a damn fool,” Rice said.

Rice also recalled that two friends he made in Holmesburg later died by suicide, indicating that Kligman’s experiments were the cause.

“Kligman, I call him an unarmed murderer. “Not (for) what he did to me, but what he did to my friends,” he said.

Rice’s grandson, Ja’Ir Rice, pointed to the generational impact the study had on his family, noting that his grandfather and father were no longer in contact. He also expressed contempt for what he called commerce-driven institutions like Penn that divided his family.

“Now certain parts of my family are acting dysfunctional because of (experiments) because of something he had no control over, and it hurts terribly,” Ja’Ir said. “I hope (things) can be fixed changed while my grandfather is still here.

Adrianne Jones-Alston, daughter of survivor Leodus Jones, shares these feelings, reflecting on her father’s involvement in the experiments and the “abuse” he brought upon her family. She said her parents’ separation led her to run away from home, experience homelessness, violence, and ultimately substance abuse.

“I can’t blame it all on experimentation, but I bet it was the trigger for my life to go into a downward spiral,” she said.

Jones-Alston made seven demands for the university in an effort to provide restorative justice for survivors and their families due to the generational effects of the experiments. Among these demands were financial compensation in the form of general support, health care funding, and community and youth program funding for Philadelphia’s inner-city programs.

“They made some (money), we’re talking billions of dollars – and my daddy’s skin is in these jars,” she said. “Share the wealth – you know, they paid for it after all.”

The demands outlined by Jones-Alston also included a sincere and “handsome” apology, transparency about how much money Penn made in the experiments and their byproducts, and comprehensive ethics training in all schools, including a section on Penn’s legacy in the Kligman experiments .

“Penn needs to step up and address this because the problem is not going away. My father is no longer here, but I am here,” she said.

Hornblum, the book’s author, noted Penn’s position as a “power” in the widespread phenomenon of prison experimentation that swept the United States in the 20th century.

“(Penn) became the Macy’s place for human experimentation, in the sense that anything anyone wanted could be done here,” he said. “Why? Because I would be at odds with Dr. Kligman’s purpose – trade, trade, trade.”

Hornblum then condemned the lack of intervention by the city authorities. Many panelists criticized the city and university’s insincere and late apology.

“It’s a city of brotherly abuse or a city of brotherly indifference, because (experiments) lasted for basically a quarter of a century in the post-war period and no one important raises their hand or points out that maybe this shouldn’t happen,” Hornblum said.