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- The role of slavery at American colleges and universities has been a focus of historical investigation and controversy. Enslaved Africans labored to build institutions of higher learning in the United States, and the slave economy was involved in funding many universities. People, forced to labor and seen as less than human, were used to build academic buildings and residential halls. Though slavery has long been presented as a uniquely Southern institution, colleges and universities in Northern states benefited from the labor of slaves. The economics of slavery brought some slave owners great wealth, enabling them to become major donors to fledgling colleges. Many colleges founded in states with legalized slavery utilized enslaved people and benefited from the slavocracy. Slaves were also sold by university administrators to generate capital. In some parts of the nation it was also not uncommon for wealthy students to bring an enslaved person with them to college. Ending almost 250 years of slavocracy did not end white supremacy, structural racism, or other forms of oppression at American colleges and the legacy of slavery still persists in many establishments. In 2004, Ira Berlin wrote that the study of slavery at universities can be controversial and can lead to tense debates. "Accompanied by the charge that the interpreters have said too much (why do you dwell upon it?) or too little (why can't you face the truth?)." He states that by reckoning with slavery, “Americans—white and black—can have a past that is both memorable and, at last, a past.” In 2006, Brown University became the first university to publish a report detailing its ties to slavery. Over the following decades, a number of American colleges and universities have made efforts to research, address, and teach about their historical connections to slavery. In 2014, a number of institutions led by the University of Virginia established Universities Studying Slavery (USS), an informal working group and later consortium dedicated to investigating institutional histories as they relate to slavery or racism. Efforts and calls to address historical connections to slavery and enduring racism at American universities were renewed in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests. (en)
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