The University of Pennsylvania has formed a faculty committee to conduct research into its own school’s historical connection with slavery.
The Daily Pennsylvanian recently reported that student research has uncovered substantial ties between the Ivy League school’s early trustees and slave trading, which was a shock to many.
As recent as September 2016, University of Pennsylvania spokesperson Ron Ozio said that there was “no direct university involvement with slavery or the slave trade” and that “Penn has explored this issue several times over the past few decades.”
The new research group is comprised of Senior Vice President for Institutional Affairs and Chief Diversity Officer Joann Mitchell, history professor and Director of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Kathleen Brown, Africana studies professor Heather Williams, and law and sociology professor Dorothy Roberts. Provost Wendell Pritchett serves as chair.
The rationale behind this move, according to Pritchett, was to increase “our understanding of Penn’s connection to slavery and the implications of these findings.”
Last semester, undergraduate students created a group called the “Penn History of Slavery Project” to find ties between the Transatlantic slave trade and that of the University.
“Three months of research has yielded surprising findings of trustee dependence on slave produced wealth as well as the transmission of that wealth and status across generations,” the student group explains on their website.
“After meeting with the students to hear of their work firsthand, we agreed that the University would form a small working group to explore the matter further so that we might improve our community’s understanding of the impact and implications of slavery on Penn’s past and what it means for the present and the future,” the group’s announcement read. “Our intention is to seek the truth and acknowledge it, and to offer recommendations for any next steps.”
The Penn Slavery Project studied 28 out of the 126 founding trustees at the university. Out of these 28, 20 held “institutional ties” with slavery.
Isaiah Denby is a college freshman from Tampa Bay, Fla., studying economics and political science.
