JBHE: Latest News for 10/26/06

Brown University Confronts Its Past Ties to Slavery

In 2003, Brown University president Ruth J. Simmons, the great-granddaughter of slaves, formed a commission to examine the university’s ties to slavery and to make recommendations on what steps the university should take to make amends for any involvement that it had with the institution. The 16-member Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice recently issued its report. The document reveals extensive ties to slavery in the university’s past including the fact that the university’s first president had a personal slave, the university’s oldest building was built in part by slave labor, and the Brown brothers for whom the university was named were involved in the Atlantic slave trade.

The committee states that the university benefited to a large degree from its association with the institution of slavery. But the university stops short of issuing an apology for its past. Instead, several measures were proposed to make amends:

Create a memorial on campus which acknowledges Brown’s ties to slavery;
Establish an annual day of remembrance on campus each year;
Rewrite the official Brown University history to include a complete discussion of the institution’s involvement in slavery;
Give new vigor to campaigns to recruit African-American students;
Increase recruiting of black students from the Caribbean and Africa;
Offer tuition waivers for master’s degree in education students who agree to work for at least three years in Providence city schools;
Offer one course per semester free of charge to every public school teacher in the state of Rhode Island;
Establish a center for the study of slavery and justice on the Brown campus. The center would have a full-time director and an endowed professorship;
Offer assistance to other universities that want to examine their past ties to slavery; and
Include a discussion of the university’s past ties to slavery in the freshman orientation program.

President Simmons stated that she will take some time and gather a wide range of opinion on the committee’s recommendations and at the appropriate time will issue the university’s official response.