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Harvard University has pledged $100 million to make amends for its historical ties to slavery, the university announced Tuesday.
The money will establish an endowed Legacy of Slavery Fund to research and redress Harvard’s “extensive entanglements with slavery,” President Lawrence Bacow wrote in a message to the community.
The announcement came with the release of a 100-page report, more than two years in the making, by a committee of Harvard professors appointed by Bacow to expose Harvard’s links to slavery.
“The truth is that slavery played a significant part in our institutional history,” Bacow wrote. “Enslaved people worked on our campus supporting our students, faculty, and staff, including several Harvard presidents. The labor of enslaved people both far and near enriched numerous donors and, ultimately, the institution.”
Harvard is the latest U.S. university to publicly acknowledge and move to rectify its involvement with slavery, joining such institutions as Brown and Georgetown Universities and the Princeton Theological Seminary, The New York Times reported.
The report released Tuesday makes a number of recommendations, in addition to establishing the Legacy of Slavery Fund. They are:
- Engage with and support descendant communities by leveraging Harvard’s excellence in education
- Honor enslaved people through memorialization, research, curricula and knowledge dissemination
- Develop enduring partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities
- Identify, engage with and support direct descendants of enslaved people
- Honor, engage with and support Native communities
- Ensure institutional accountability
