In 2019, Harvard President Lawrence Bacow formed a 14-member committee to determine the level of Harvard’s involvement in slavery and racial inequality.
Three years later, the group released a 100-page report describing the ways Harvard benefitted from the oppressed.
As a result, they committed $100 million of their $53 billion endowment to reparations.
Reuters explains:
The report laid out a history of slaves toiling on the campus and of the university benefiting from the slave trade and industries linked to slavery after it was outlawed in Massachusetts in 1783 – 147 years after Harvard’s founding. The report also documents Harvard excluding Black students and its scholars advocating racism.
While Harvard had notable figures among abolitionists and in the civil rights movement, the report said, “The nation’s oldest institution of higher education … helped to perpetuate the era’s racial oppression and exploitation.”
They are going to spend the $100 million with he following recommendations:
Engage 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 Black Colleges and Universities
Identify, Engage, and Support Direct Descendants
Honor, Engage, and Support Native Communities
Establish an Endowed Legacy of Slavery Fund to Support the University’s Reparative Efforts
Ensure Institutional Accountability
If nothing else, it appears these Harvard WOKEs are going to do very little with a small portion of their endowment. Recommendations 4 and 5 have value but the rest of the recommendations are lip service.
Harvard is all talk and little action. Somehow, this is supposed “to close the educational, social and economic gaps that are legacies of slavery and racism.” Welcome to the world of the WOKEs.
If they really wanted to help the descendants of enslaved people, why not just give them scholarships?
We don’t think reparations are a good idea. There is no way people today can atone for the sins of people long dead committed against innocent people long dead. However, if you are going to do it, be sincere.
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Harvard, the Nation’s oldest learning institution, is the greatest problem America Faces today. That is because it is a Liberal Institution that no longer believes in God. It’s interesting that Harvard was founded by the Puritan clergyman John Harvard who donated much of his wealth to the School upon his death. I would say the a Puritan was anything but a Liberal since they Found the Catholic Church and the Church of England too Liberal. If Harvard had stuck to it’s founding Fathers’ Puritan ethics it probably would not have taken advantage of Slaves after Slavery was outlawed in Massachusetts. Even today, Ethics at Harvard are questioned by many. What Harvard should be doing is promoting excellence, responsibility, and the ethics rooting in that of it’s founders, i.e. Conservative Ethics regardless of race. You don’t abolish racism by being racist and that’s what this report is suggesting Harvard do. Does Harvard really believe that by giving lip service to their indiscretions in the past, that they continue with new indiscretions in the future and no one will notice?