Universities around the United States have taken various attempts to atone for their participation in slavery, but several historians said the establishment of an admissions preference is unprecedented.
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According to The New York Times, two campus buildings will also be renamed in memory of an enslaved African-American man and an African-American woman who founded a school for young Black girls.
The slaves were sold to plantations in Louisiana for $115,000, worth about $3.3 million today. The university will offer an advantage in admissions to descendants of all slaves who labored for Georgetown similar to that offered to the children and grandchildren of alumni.
While many other schools have acknowledged their ties to the slave trade or simply resorted to changing the controversial names on some of their buildings, Wilder believes Georgetown’s strides are the most profound of any university in the last ten years.
“This community participated in the institution of slavery”, DeGioia said, addressing a crowd of hundreds of students, faculty members and descendants at Georgetown’s Gaston Hall.
He will be acting on the recommendations of a commission that was set up previous year with a mission precisely to identify ways in which the university might atone of its part in America’s slave trade, which remains one of the country’s most sensitive historical legacies. Although descendants now have preference in admissions, they need to be aware this preference exists – and that they are descendants.
As for the thousands of living descendants, the group suggested the university look into admission and financial aid initiatives.
Having Georgetown acknowledge its history is important to the school’s community, Rothman said. A portion of the profit, about $500,000, was used to help pay off Georgetown’s debts at a time when the college was struggling financially. “It’s OK to get uncomfortable and kind of be among this history in a way that makes people feel kind of uneasy because we’re all affected by it, so since we’re all affected by it, we might as well engage with it”.
“I think it sends a strong signal that the university is committed to it”, he said.
“It goes farther than just about any institution”, he said.
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The Washington-based university, run by the Roman Catholic Jesuit order, will create an institute to study the history of slavery at the school. The letter links to the report that the working group has been working on and provides insight on some of the initial steps that will be taken. An “unknown number” of other enslaved people worked in or for the school, the working group says.
