The oldest university in the United States has announced that it will administer some form of reparations to the descendants of enslaved people.
Harvard University made the announcement following a report which looked at the school and how it was involved in the slave trade and how its professors taught racial eugenics.
A committee formed in 2019 by Harvard President Lawrence Bacow examined the extent of the school's involvement with slavery.
It determined that faculty and staff enslaved 70 people from the founding of the school in 1636 to the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts in 1783.
In its report, the university looked at what it will do to atone for its involvement with the slave trade. This includes monetary reparations for Black and Indigenous students who are descendants of enslaved persons in the U.S.
"The profound harm caused by the university's entanglements with slavery and its legacies cannot be valued in monetary terms alone," the report said. "Nevertheless, financial expenditures are a necessary predicate to and foundation for redress."
The committee had found that some of the 70 enslaved people had lived on campus and provided care for Harvard's presidents, professors, and students. It also found that donors to the college profited from the slave trade up until the 19th century.
Now, the Legacy Slavery fund will be "strategically invested to support implementation" of different reparations that are recommended, the report said.
Harvard has said it is also planning to partner with Historically Black Colleges and Universities through several initiatives. These include appointing visiting HBCU professors to Harvard for a year, semester-long and year-long studies at Harvard for HBCU students, and more.
Currently, the school is working to identify Black and Indigenous descendants of enslaved people in the U.S. so that they can work with them.
"We further recommend that, in recognition of this lineage, the university engage with these descendants through dialogue, programming, information sharing, relationship building, and educational support," it said.
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