"Our moral agency must be channeled to undo this damage."

September 2, 2016 8:02 AM

A year ago, Georgetown University convened a panel to examine its role in America's slave trade. This week, university president John J. DeGioia announced the results, which include a planned apology, preferential admission status for descendants of slaves whose labor benefited the school (similar to legacy admissions for children of alumni), and the renaming of two buildings that until last year had borne the names of former university presidents who arranged a sale of 272 slaves in 1838.
posted by Etrigan (14 comments total)

Preferential admission seems a bit weak, especially given the cost of university education in the US. A scholarship, covering the full costs of an education, would seem much fairer. (After all, the recipients' ancestors were involuntarily instrumental in establishing the university, and got nothing out of it.)
posted by acb at 8:09 AM on September 2, 2016 [17 favorites]

Ta-Nehisi Coates: "Folks may not like the word 'reparations', but it's what Georgetown did. Scope is debatable. But it's reparations."
posted by kliuless at 8:32 AM on September 2, 2016 [15 favorites]

Yes, none of this will actually cost the school a dime. Well, except the cost of reprinting some maps and stationery, I suppose. Given that the number of people who will be in a position to take advantage of the preference will be small, financial support for those students would not have been an unbearable expense.
posted by praemunire at 8:32 AM on September 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Preferential admission seems a bit weak, especially given the cost of university education in the US. A scholarship, covering the full costs of an education, would seem much fairer.

I wouldn't argue against a scholarship in these circumstances, but assuming Georgetown is like its peer institutions, admission is already need-blind, meaning in part that tuition is only charged based on a given student's ability to pay (it's more complicated than that, but I think that's the basic gist). Costs to the student at elite institutions are almost always much lower than at schools that don't have billion-dollar endowments.
posted by Copronymus at 8:39 AM on September 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I find myself wondering - considering that any kind of material accountability for slavery makes many white people wild with rage, could something like this be used as the thin end of the wedge? Get people used to the idea that if your institution benefited in very clear ways from slavery, you owe something to the descendants of enslaved people even if you're not really giving much, and then push for more? Obviously, the whole thing could die with this policy, but maybe it could be used as a starting point instead.
posted by Frowner at 8:44 AM on September 2, 2016 [8 favorites]

assuming Georgetown is like its peer institutions, admission is already need-blind, meaning in part that tuition is only charged based on a given student's ability to pay

Sure, but the students shouldn't have to pay at all, regardless of ability to do so. Their ancestors already did, many times over.
posted by zebra at 8:46 AM on September 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sure, but the students shouldn't have to pay at all, regardless of ability to do so. Their ancestors already did, many times over.

Yeah, I came at that from a dumb angle because of an ultimately unrelated bee in my bonnet. I fully agree that they shouldn't have to pay anything.
posted by Copronymus at 8:48 AM on September 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Georgetown considers student loans "a vital component of the financial aid package." Let's spare these students the vital experience of struggling to pay off student debt while trying to build a life.
posted by praemunire at 8:49 AM on September 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

Frowner, I think that's unfortunately excessively optimistic, simply because so very many people are still committed to the idea that the distribution of resources in society now is not affected by what happened "so long ago." (If your ancestors immigrated after 1864, hey, it's got nothing to do with you!) Regardless of what one thinks about reparations, Coates's work has been very valuable in illustrating just how recent (and persistent) the looting of black communities is.
posted by praemunire at 8:53 AM on September 2, 2016

Yeah, I don't know. Preferential treatment for admissions seems deeply, profoundly inadequate.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:27 AM on September 2, 2016

Need-blind admissions means that acceptance to the school is done without consideration of students' ability to pay full tuition. Often, schools with need-blind admissions are committed to providing a financial aid package to students - but the real question is, how much of that is grants and scholarship, and how much is loans?

I agree that the tangible resources provided to the descendants of the people that Georgetown enslaved and sold is weak. But I also think that the symbolic step - acknowledging that the legacy of slavery is an ongoing issue - is pretty huge.

I just wish that the tangible step were as strong as the symbolic step.
posted by entropone at 9:42 AM on September 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm white, 51, and every time I see "considering that any kind of material accountability for slavery makes many white people wild with rage" I go, wtf? I'm dutch, and although I haven't traced my ancestors anywhere before 1900 or so, I assume they were dutch to quite a while back - although my last name suggest some french heritage way back. Anyway, I'm assuming that my ancestors were in the thick of it, as the dutch have quite a history when it comes to slavery. Visit the kura hulanda museum if you have a chance.

Given all that, it's likely that I'm considered to be one of those wild with rage at the suggestion, and I can't for the life of my figure out why (except if you're simply a racist?) - to me it sounds like even a vaguely reasonable cause to think your ancestor was one of those slaves that helped built the university should get you a red carpet treatment into a fully free education at the university, and even that can't even begin to repay the debt owed.
posted by DreamerFi at 11:46 AM on September 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Need-blind admissions means that acceptance to the school is done without consideration of students' ability to pay full tuition. Often, schools with need-blind admissions are committed to providing a financial aid package to students - but the real question is, how much of that is grants and scholarship, and how much is loans?

With the caveat that I graduated from Georgetown in the mid-90s, back when the entire cost for four years (tuition, room, board, fees, etc.) was around $100K, they gave me the max amount of subsidized Stafford loans (total for four years was about $17K), Pell grant (about $6K), Perkins loans (about $4K), work study ($?); my family's EFC was $0 (poor!) and my EFC was about $5K (summer jobs). Georgetown gave me about $65K in university-funded grant.

Based on the alumni response I have seen to this project, I suspect that the school would have no trouble obtaining donations for a specific scholarship campaign to fully cover the costs. Giving legacy preference is something, but it's only a start.
posted by candyland at 1:58 PM on September 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

Literally the next sentence in the letter DiGioia sent the alums after saying the descendants would get legacy preference, was an implied statement that the school planned on using grants to fund those students education.

Most of Gu's undergrad peers are already mostly funding poorer students through grants. The school lags on that measure because it's endowment is much smaller than its peer group's.

There real issue with the admissions preference is that it increases the odds of admission from like 16% to 25% or something like that.

Course they can always apply to the business school...
posted by JPD at 4:46 AM on September 4, 2016