Students at Brown University have voted to offer reparations to descendants of slaves who were affiliated with the school and its founders. During the process, students at the Ivy League institution voted on two referendums. More than 85% of students feel that the university should make "all possible efforts to identify the descendants of enslaved Africans who were entangled with and/or afflicted by the University and Brown family and their associates." More than 80% of students voted for the university to provide reparations to descendants of slaves affiliated with the school.
Brown University is not the only institution to consider offering reparations. Princeton University has built a $27 million fund to launch initiatives that will help address how it has benefited from slavery. Georgetown University has also created a $400,000 fund to help assist the descendants of slaves it sold to pay off a debt in the 1800s. At the Big East school, students voted to pay a $27.20 fee per semester to support a reparations fund.
"We embrace the spirit of this student proposal and will work with our Georgetown community to create an initiative that will support community-based projects with Descendant communities," Georgetown University President John HJ. DeGioia said.
"The University will ensure that the initiative has resources commensurate with, or exceeding, the amount that would have been raised annually through the student fee proposed in the Referendum, with opportunities for every member of our community to contribute."
Nationally, more than 160 members of Congress have supported H.R. 40, a bill that would commission the study of reparations. However, the bill does not outright state that the government will provide reparations to the descendants of slaves.
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