In an unprecedented form of atonement, Georgetown University will give admissions preference to descendants of slaves who were once owned by the university and its Jesuit community in Maryland.
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In the 19th century, Georgetown relied on income from its Maryland slave plantations. Clemson University took similar action by erecting a series of markers to commemorate the enslaved people who helped build the school into what it is today.
Continuing to recognize and atone for its slavery past, Georgetown University announced today the recommendations of its Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation, charged one year ago to provide specific answers on how the university should respond to its history.
Led by history professor Adam Rothman, the group did extensive archival research to inform its report.
Those ties go back almost two centuries, when the Washington, D.C., school sold 272 slaves and used the proceeds to pay off debt.
“We will give descendants the same consideration we give members of the Georgetown community in the admissions process”, DeGioia wrote in a letter to the university community.
Georgetown University will award preferential admissions status to the descendants of the 272 former slaves it sold to pay off its debts, the New York Times reported. Compared to the dozen or more universities that are contending publicly with their respective historical ties to slaveholding, this gesture by Georgetown created a significant precedent. But now, the school is going even further.
Georgetown University has chose to create a new institute to study slavery and will rename two of its buildings as it develops ways to address its past connections to the slave trade. DeGioia said that the school will be actively recruiting descendants to attend the school.
While other universities have had to confront their roles in slavery, Georgetown is unique in that the meticulous records kept by the Jesuits and the fact that the slaves continued to practice their Catholic faith have allowed genealogists to identify and locate their descendants.
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Others had hoped the university would go farther, the Times said. Harper Royal, who is an organizer of a group of descendants. “They’re calling us family”. We will be switching to a new platform early in September. How many must trace their lineage with bills of sale rather than birth certificates? It also has documents that show the names, ages and relationships of the 272 slaves sold in 1838. Will oral history count for Georgetown?
