The University was built on slave labor and anti-blackness still pervades now

Academia is often thought of as an ivory tower; a place where the brightest and most thirsty minds convene to acquire more knowledge and expertise. Higher education is purported to be the beacon of free thought. Despite a desire to convince the world that it is a safe haven for liberalism, many institutions have not yet grappled with the ghosts of a not-so-distant past. Predominantly white institutions (PWIs) within the United States have yet to fully make amends for the ways that they advanced from the slave trade. In addition to a long legacy of slavery, PWIs continue to profit off the labor of Black bodies. In 2013, Craig Steven Wilder explored the hidden history of Black labor from past to present in his book Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities. According to a New York Times article, Wilder spent ten years researching for the book. The book explores the many ways that American universities exploited Black bodies. Readers are taken on a journey of how Black people endured assault and abuse, often solely for the amusement of white faculty and students. One story that stands out in the book was that of founding trustee Rev. Samuel Gray of the College of William and Mary, who murdered an enslaved child who had been caught running away.

On college campuses, there was also a long history of medical experimentation on Black bodies. It was recently reported that the remains of two children who died during the 1985 MOVE bombing were being used at the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Museum for research and teaching. Black bodies were commodified at PWIs through various forms of slave labor. Many of the most renowned universities in this country were built through slave labor. With a recognition of this in mind, some universities have started the process to address and atone for the horrific transgressions of the past. In 2019, Georgetown University announced that they would raise $400,000 each year to support descendants of the 272 enslaved persons who were sold to keep the college going. PWIs should start thinking about recompences for the ways they’ve benefited from and profited off of Black labor. When envisioning what reparations for descendants of enslaved Black people could look like, free college tuition is a beneficial place to start. In addition, loans that were incurred to secure a college education should be forgiven for descendants of enslaved people.

PWIs continue to benefit from Black labor in a number of different ways. A 2018 research paper by Dancy, Edwards, and Davis explored the various forms of anti-blackness that continue to plague academia. The researchers asserted that anti-blackness often manifests in two distinct ways: Black bodies used for labor as property and the policing, control, regulation, and eradication of Black people in the academy. There is a wealth of evidence that supports the researchers’ claims. One of the most blatant forms of Black labor is through athletics. Black people dominate much of the college athlete population. College athletes are used by institutions and do not receive adequate compensation, when analyzing the value that they bring to the institutions they represent. Under NCAA guidelines, college athletes are not able to receive compensation of any kind. In addition to the labor that is extracted from Black athletes, for college football players, there is an even greater risk. A Journal of the American Medical Association study found that CTE, a brain condition caused by repeated head trauma, was found in the brains of 91% of deceased college football players examined.

When exploring the many ways that Black bodies are policed, controlled and regulated in PWIs, several recent examples from students and faculty alike highlight this pervasive issue. In a 2018 incident at Yale University, a white student called the police on a Black graduate student who had fallen asleep in the common room of their dorm. Scholar, writer and professor Dr. Cornel West is currently in a battle with Harvard University. West was denied tenure at Harvard despite having tenure at the university in the past, and having received tenure at Princeton and Yale. West disputed the decision and had an overwhelming amount of support from students. In 2020, Dr. Aysha Khoury was dismissed from her position at Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine after teaching a class about racism in medicine. Black adjuncts are not immune to the impacts of anti-blackness either; Recently, educator Ericka Hart shared a heartbreaking story of being pushed out of an elite institution that provided little protections for Black faculty.