Georgetown University recently announced that, on the advice of its Working Group on Slavery, Memory and Reconciliation, it will offer preferential admissions treatment to descendants of enslaved individuals whose “labor and value benefited the University.”
This decision received a significant amount of press nationally, but it has a particular resonance locally.
The Chancellor’s Task Force on University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill History is tasked with planning historical markers, recommending improvements on published information about UNC’s buildings and monuments, studying the feasibility of a public space to house a permanent exhibit on UNC history and exploring opportunities to communicate the school’s history.
That list of tasks should be expanded to include studying opportunities for and the feasibility of reparative justice.
UNC has often struggled with coming to terms with its history of racial injustice, but recent gestures like the addition of a plaque on Hurston Hall recognize that past.
These gestures acknowledge that UNC was built with stolen labor and has often celebrated white supremacists.
These are positive steps, but if UNC wants to truly rebuke its past injustices, it needs to indicate a willingness to repay its ill-gotten gains. An apology without recompense is insincere.
This first step in the process is serious and focused study. It is easy to list injustices committed by UNC — from the enslaved individuals who built Old East to the exclusion of students of color until 1955.
Less straightforward is finding direct and meaningful ways to act. The place of the task force should be to both clearly define injustices and suggest opportunities for reparative justice.
