By Michael Duffy Washington Post Opinions editor-at-large
We are witnessing something of a watershed moment in the reckoning America is having with itself and its history. Harvard University released a 134-page report Tuesday that begins to explain how, as Post columnist Eugene Robinson put it, “the nation’s oldest, richest and most prestigious institution of higher learning” benefited from slavery.
Two Harvard officials wrote in blunt terms about the university’s findings in a guest op-ed. “Slavery powerfully shaped Harvard,” wrote Lawrence S. Bacow, Harvard’s president, and Tomiko Brown-Nagin, dean of the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. “The labor of enslaved people enriched donors to the university, helping Harvard expand its infrastructure, grow its faculty and student body, and build its reputation. And prominent Harvard leaders and professors defended slavery, justified segregation, and promoted racial hierarchy and discrimination.”
Read more HERE.