This Could Be the First Slavery Reparations Policy in America

In September 2014, a Georgetown junior published a column in The Hoya, the student newspaper, with the headline: “Georgetown, Financed by Slave Trading.” It unearthed a known but largely forgotten history: that the esteemed Jesuit university had saved itself from financial ruin in 1838 by selling 272 enslaved people. In September 2015, Georgetown’s president, John J. DeGioia, impaneled a working group of academics, administrators and students to study the issue. But the perception has grown among some of the approximately 7,000 undergraduates that the university has moved too slowly. This week, Georgetown students are attempting to change that.