Harvard University will spend $100 million to study its ties to slavery and the process of repairing it, becoming the latest prestigious university to launch a fund to study its own past.
A view of the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There is a photo by Maddie Meyer.
The university released a report on its ties to slavery along with a list of recommendations moving forward, including the creation of an endowed Legacy of Slavery Fund to fund new programs.
The report calls on the university to identify, engage, and support direct descendants of enslaved workers early in the university's history, which included Black and Native American slaves.
Increased access to educational opportunities was the primary recommendation, while also attempting to reach broader groups that have largely been excluded from attending Harvard.
The report recommends a closer partnership between Harvard and historically Black colleges and universities, in part through the creation of a new Du Bois Scholars Program to subsidize semester, summer or yearlong visits from HBCU students to Harvard.
More than 70. Almost all of the enslaved people in the appendix to the report are either unnamed or known only by their first name.
In an email obtained by the New York Times, Harvard president Lawrence S. Bacow said that Harvard benefited from and perpetuated practices that were profoundly immoral.
Over the past few years, a number of prominent institutions have announced similar financial commitments, such as the Jesuit Catholic order, which sold slaves to pay off debts for building Georgetown University. Harvard's report details a history of university presidents, faculty members and major donors during the century-and-a-half after its 1636 founding that owned slaves. According to the report, many of those figures still have their names engraved on plaques, buildings and other places of significance on Harvard's campus. The report recommends the creation of a memorial or space on the campus to honor the work of slaves there.
The New York Times reported that Harvard created a fund to change its ties to slavery.
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