Better Late Than Never? College and Universities Begin Apologizing for Ties to Slavery

Brown University is the latest institution of higher education to address its former ties to slavery and may be doing so the most extensively. A Brown University committee, Committee on Slavery and Justice, has called for the ivy league school to "make amends by building a memorial, creating a center for the study of slavery and injustice and increasing efforts to recruit minority students, particularly from Africa and the West Indies." The committee said in its report that,

"“We cannot change the past. But an institution can hold itself accountable for the past, accepting its burdens and responsibilities along with its benefits and privileges.”

Ruth J. Simmons is the president of Brown University, is the first black president of an ivy league institution and is a great-granddaughter of slaves, but has yet to issue a personal or official university response to the committee's report.

Brown University is certainly not the only university in American to have benefitted from slavery and not even the only ivy league institution to benefit.

Even in the North, a number of universities have ties to slavery. Harvard Law School was endowed by money its founder earned selling slaves for the sugar cane fields of Antigua. And at Yale, three scholars reported in 2001 that the university relied on slave-trading money for its first scholarships, endowed professorship and library endowment.

However, Brown could be the first institution to "apologize" for ties to slavery as extensively as the committee suggests.

The report cites examples of steps taken by other universities: a memorial unveiled last year by the University of North Carolina, a five-year program of workshops and activities at Emory University, and a 2004 vote by the faculty senate of the University of Alabama to apologize for previous faculty members having whipped slaves on campus.