Brown University issued an exhaustive documentation on Wednesday of its founders’ role in the slave trade, and recommended setting up a memorial on its campus in Providence, R.I., and establishing a center for the continuing study of slavery and justice.
Coming after three years of meetings, however, the report -- by a 16-member Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice -- may be more notable for what it doesn’t do: It falls short of offering an institutional apology, and while it discusses the issue of reparations at length, it makes no recommendation on whether to offer such payments to the descendants of slaves.
While many people had written to the committee suggesting that Brown set up additional scholarships for African-American students, the committee said it could not recommend doing so because the university is need-blind in admission decisions. Brown commits to providing whatever financial aid the students it accepts might require, the report explains, but does not offer assistance on any basis other than need.
The report recommends, however, that the university dedicate more attention to the recruitment of students from Africa and the West Indies, the origin of most of the slaves that ended up in Rhode Island. It also says Brown should set a goal of becoming need-blind for international students, as well as domestic ones.
The committee was established in 2003 by Brown’s president, Ruth J. Simmons (The Chronicle, March 15, 2004). Ms. Simmons is the first African-American to lead an Ivy League institution and is herself a descendant of slaves.
Five months before she became Brown’s president, in 2001, The Brown Daily Herald, the student newspaper, created a firestorm by printing a paid advertisement written by conservative activist David Horowitz, who opined that paying reparations is wrong. The next day, members of a coalition of ethnic student groups dumped nearly every copy of the newspaper into the trash (The Chronicle, March 19, 2001).
Since the committee was named, the university has had a number of public forums and has invited numerous speakers to explore the reverberations of slavery in Providence and nearby Newport, R.I., once important Northern centers for the importation of slaves.
For Lincoln Restler, a senior and leader of the departmental undergraduate group for students majoring in Africana Studies, those forums have already proven the worth of the inquiry.
“University Hall -- many of those who laid those bricks for its construction were slaves,” said Mr. Restler, referring to the oldest building on the campus. “Their descendants probably still live around Providence. How do we try to redress that past? This is a beginning step in confronting that and what it means.”
Perhaps the most sweeping recommendations in the report involved giving more of Brown’s resources to the local public schools. The report recommends allowing every public-school teacher in Rhode Island to attend one Brown class per semester free of charge, giving full tuition waivers to students in Brown’s Master of Arts in Teaching program who commit to spending three years in local public schools, and investing “substantial resources” in the university’s department of urban-education policy, “with an eye to establishing Brown as a national leader in this vital field.”
The university is named for Nicholas Brown Jr., a scion of the prominent mercantile family instrumental in the early industry of Providence.
The Browns were slave owners, the report says, although it adds, “by the standards of Rhode Island’s mercantile elite, the Browns were not major slave traders.” However, several members of the university’s governing board at the time had greater slave holdings, and their donations led to the building of the institution.
The report delves at length into the history and politics of public apologies and the paying of reparations, but offers no conclusions about either.
No one on the 16-member committee could be reached for comment on Wednesday, but the question of whether to issue an apology apparently caused a split.
“Members of the committee have different opinions about the propriety and value of an institutional apology,” the report says. The committee agreed, at a minimum, it says, “to acknowledge formally and publicly the participation of many of Brown’s founders and benefactors in the institution of slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, as well as the benefits the university derived from them.”
It recommends that the university wear a hair shirt over the issue from now on. “Tell the truth in all its complexity,” the report admonishes.
The report also recommends that the university make a discussion of its ties to slavery a part of its future freshman-orientation programs, issue a revised version of the institution’s history, offer its assistance to other universities making similar inquiries into their historical ties to the slave industry, and establish an annual day of remembrance.
Mr. Horowitz, who perhaps sparked the debate, was relieved to hear on Wednesday that Brown would not commit to reparations. “It tears the community apart over something that happened very long ago,” he said.
He had not seen the report, he said, but added, “To the extent that it is a historical look at slavery, I have no problem with that. My whole campaign is to get more academic debate over important issues.”
He described Ms. Simmons as a “very cagey” and “very intelligent” person who may have not wanted to offend potential donors by including a commitment to paying reparations.
Ms. Simmons sent an e-mail message to all students and employees on Wednesday, urging them to read the full report in context, rather than just focus on its recommendations. “When it is appropriate to do so,” she wrote, “I will issue a university response to the recommendations and suggest what we might do with regard to the findings.”
Background articles from The Chronicle:
