The Faculty Lounge

Colleges and Slavery Investigations

One year ago the University of Virginia's board of visitors apologized for that university's connections to slavery.  And in the past year, self-investigations at the University of Maryland and William and Mary have begun.  After Brown University's Slavery and Justice Committee released its report back in 2006, I thought that other schools might follow Brown University's lead in talking about their connections to slavery.  I thought that Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, as well as a bunch of southern schools, like UVA, W&M, Randolph Macon College, Ole Miss, and UGA, might take up investigations.  Only part of my prediction has come true.

As Brittany M. Llewellyn and Alexandra Perloff-Giles report in today's Harvard Crimson,
Harvard's not going to be following them right now--a position I completely understand.  As I said about William and Mary's deliberations, the decision of what--if anything--to do is best left to a school's current students, faculty, and administration.  If Harvard students and faculty think this is something that should be pursued, they should pursue it, through their research and advocacy.   The rest of us who don't have to live with these difficult discussions shouldn't put the onus on Harvard's administration.  And certainly the current students and faculty (and even alums to the extent that they care) shouldn't expect the administration to carry the burden, either.  (The Crimson article draws an important distinction between Drew Faust's role as one of our country's leading historians and her role as president.)

One thing that I think a self-investigation would remind us is the school's connections to anti-slavery as well as proslavery thought.   Harvard, like Brown, was a major training ground for anti-slavery thinkers.   (A point made well in this article from the Crimson on Thursday.)  Brown's president during much of the antebellum period, Francis Wayland, was a leading antislavery advocate.  And Harvard--well, in Alabama I'm not so sure we think that Harvard was a hot-bed of proslavery thought.  Emerson, Thoreau, William Ellery Channing, Theodore Parker ... all Harvard alums.  (Of course, Joseph Story, Lemuel Shaw, Timothy Walker ... all Harvard alums, too.)

The illustration is of Harvard Hall, where Edward Everett lectured and set loose the seeds of Transcendentalism, in which Emerson and Thoreau and so many others found their antislavery ideas.

Alfred Brophy

Unique Bequests to Universities

What happens when a decedent leaves a chunk of change to a university with bizarre strings attached? For example, at Dartmouth, a donor left $1,000 in his will to fund the constant supply of firewood in the president's office. That was in 1945, so half a century later, that endowment is now worth much, much more.  Today, the fund is used for general maintenance in the president's office--which no longer has a working fireplace.   Also at Dartmouth, an alum from the class of 1879 left $10,000 for trumpeters to play at every graduation.  Worth over $250,000 today, the money still supplies sweet tunes in May, while also paying for other expenses in the music department.  For other examples of quirky gifts to universities, click here.

Thanks to SUCOL student Mr. Rennie for bringing this article to my attention.

Who Knew College Teachers Had To Sign Loyalty Oaths?

Apparently they do in the California State University system.  This from the SF Chronicle:

As a Quaker, [Cal State East Bay teacher] Kearney-Brown is committed to nonviolence and was unwilling to sign the state oath of allegiance that required her to "swear (or affirm)" that she would "support and defend" the U.S. and California constitutions "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." She tried inserting the word "nonviolently" in front of the word "support," but was told by university officials that altering the oath was unacceptable.

Is this more a story about the inappropriate use of loyalty oaths or a massive bureaucracy that processes an incredibly personal (and powerful) personal affirmation like a HIPAA waiver at the doctor's office?  In the end, lawyers with the state AG allowed her to append the following statement:  "Signing the oath does not carry with it any obligation or requirement that public employees bear arms or otherwise engage in violence." 

Saddest of all is that the rare person who actually read and cared about the oath was the one who got rolled under the bus.