Georgetown U. to Give Admissions Preference to Slave Descendants
Atoning for sins of the past.
As a Jesuit institution, Georgetown may technically be a Catholic school but it is decidedly progressive in its politics. The school also has a slavery related stain in its past for which it is now trying to atone.
CBS News in Washington, DC reports:
Georgetown to Give Slave Descendants Priority for Admission
Georgetown University will give preference in admissions to the descendants of slaves owned by the Maryland Jesuits as part of its effort to atone for profiting from the sale of enslaved people.
Georgetown president John DeGioia told news outlets that the university in Washington will implement the admissions preferences. He says Georgetown will need to identify and reach out to descendants of slaves and recruit them to the university.
On Thursday morning, a university committee released a report that also called on its leaders to offer a formal apology for the university’s participation in the slave trade.
In 1838, two priests who served as president of the university orchestrated the sale of 272 people to pay off debts at the school. The slaves were sent from Maryland to plantations in Louisiana.
The university says it will give descendants of those slaves “the same consideration we give members of the Georgetown community” when they apply.
Georgetown President John DeGioia penned a letter to students and faculty Thursday, writing, “I believe the most appropriate ways for us to redress the participation of our predecessors in the institution of slavery is to address the manifestations of the legacy of slavery in our time.”
Of course, it’s no mistake that this is happening now as the Black Lives Matter movement has become a common cause among those on the left.
In Massachusetts, where I live, it’s not uncommon for churches of various denominations to display Black Lives Matter banners.
Georgetown has also issued the apology mentioned above.
Reuters reports:
Georgetown University apologizes for slavery past
The Washington-based university, run by the Roman Catholic Jesuit order, will create an institute to study the history of slavery at the school. It will also rename two buildings that had honored presidents who oversaw the 1838 sale of the 272 slaves, who had worked on church-affiliated plantations in Maryland.
“This original evil that shaped the early years of the republic was present here,” Georgetown President John DeGioia told an audience that included descendants of the slaves.
The university will hold a Mass of reconciliation “in which we will seek forgiveness for our participation in the institution of slavery, specifically for the sale of 272 children, women and men who we should regard as members of our community.”
As the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished:
But some criticized as inadequate the decision to give the descendants of the sold slaves the same admissions preference as the children of faculty, staff and alumni.
“We remain hopeful that we can forge a relationship with Georgetown that will lead to ‘real’ atonement,” Karran Harper Royal, an organizer of a group of descendants, said in an email.
She added that the school should have offered scholarships to slaves’ descendants and included them on the panel that made the recommendations.
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Comments
How is all this verified? Surely it would be raaaciss to request a photo ID and genealogy record to prove it…
I have no doubt that verification will be conducted with the same rigor as citizenship for voter registration, you just check a box that says slave descendant. Its only fair.
in which we will seek forgiveness for our participation in the institution of slavery
Will never happen. “Forgiveness” will end the Gift That Keeps On Giving; who would be dumb enough to do that?
Yup! Here is her “Thank You.”
“We remain hopeful that we can forge a relationship with Georgetown that will lead to ‘real’ atonement,” Karran Harper Royal, an organizer of a group of descendants, said in an email.
She added that the school should have offered scholarships to slaves’ descendants and included them on the panel that made the recommendations.
==================
Exactly. How can the goal, or objective, ever be achieved if it is never defined, or so broadly stated that there will always be exceptions.
That is a feature, not a bug. For SJWs and other Lefturds, the issue is never the issue. The Struggle is the issue. The perpetual struggle.
With the struggle being about power: the acquiring of it, the keeping of it, and the wielding of it which is often for the selected few and elite not the common good, although their deceitful verbiage says otherwise.
In 1838!
Social justice idiots that are having a major guilt trip!
What about the native Americans? You stole their land?
Blacks don’t have the corner when it comes to injustices. Search through human history and, basically, at one time or another various populations have suffered at the hands of others. The ones who have fared better are those who have been able to move beyond what took place, even if their circumstance was less than ideal.
Defining today by past wrongs may bring about some present satisfaction, yet it will ultimately be shown to be shallow and devoid of character.
Modern day equivalent of 40 acres and a mule?
My great grandfather was orphaned because his father married an Indian (“feather”… not “curry” type… Native American to you progs). That was over 170 years ago and the past is the past.
But as Thurgood Marshall believed…. reparation would take centuries. Such actions only perpetuate racial discord.
How prejudice is born.
Over the years, GU has educated and graduated thousands of black students, many of which were themselves the descendants of slaves. Other slaves, that is. Two questions:
1. Isn’t that atonement enough?
2. Why is GU discriminating by favoring only special slaves?
How in the he]] can anybody pretend to trace anyone back to those 272 slaves? I call “B.S., Georgetown.”
Slaves were valuable property and they were also taxed. There are lots and lots of records about specific slaves before the Civil War.
My guess would be that tracking people during the period from 1865-1935 – end of the Civil War to the start of the New Deal – is going to be the more challenging task.
I no doubt have slaves in my history (back in Ireland).
Do I count?! (rhetorical question)
Animal Farm comes to life.
Some of my Scots ancestors were indentured servants.
And some of my ancestors were, no doubt, serfs.
I think people are generally misreading this. This isn’t a hand out. Nor is it an offer of automatic admission even if you CAN prove you are a direct descendant to one of the 272 slaves who were sold. All this is doing is granting the same special consideration to those proven descendants that is granted to legacy applicants. I am assuming that being academically qualified is required and that there is a desire to attend Georgetown. I don’t see “automatic admission” or “scholarships” mentioned anywhere.
Maybe I’m the one who isn’t reading this correctly but I don’t see what the problem is. It’s not like Georgetown will suddenly be flooded with unqualified blacks attending on special new scholarships. As it is now, about the only black students at Georgetown play on the basketball team. If there anything worth questioning its whether Georgetown is just acting on its own “white guilt” issues. This probably will amount to nothing more than a new version of tokenism is the end, “I had a black friend in college” stuff.