Harvard sets up $100 million endowment fund for slavery reparations

[demmiblue]

Source: Reuters

April 26 (Reuters) - Harvard University is setting aside $100 million for an endowment fund and other measures to close the educational, social and economic gaps that are legacies of slavery and racism, according to an email the university’s president sent to all students, faculty and staff on Tuesday.

The email from Harvard President Lawrence Bacow included a link to a 100-page report by his university’s 14-member Committee on Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery. The panel was chaired by Tomiko Brown-Nagin, a legal historian and constitutional law expert who is dean of Harvard's interdisciplinary Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The email and the report were released to Reuters.

The move comes amid a wider conversation about redressing the impacts of centuries of slavery, discrimination and racism. Some people have called for financial or other reparations.

The report laid out a history of slaves toiling on the campus and of the university benefiting from the slave trade and industries linked to slavery after slavery was outlawed in Massachusetts in 1783 - 147 years after Harvard’s founding. The report also documents Harvard excluding Black students and its scholars advocating racism.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harvard-sets-up-100-million-endowment-fund-slavery-reparations-2022-04-26/

[Uncle Joe]

1. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread demmiblue

[Wild blueberry]

2. Good start

Thank you.

[OnlinePoker]

3. An interesting breakdown of diversity at Harvard

8.7% of Undergrads and 5.1% of grad students are black.

https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/harvard-university/student-life/diversity/#ethnic_diversity

[FailureToCommunicate]

4. Harvard appears to be better than most, though, in overall diversity...

https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/harvard-university/student-life/diversity/chart-ethnic-diversity.html

[praxEs]

5. A mere pittance, shockingly tiny

given that Harvard's current endowment is $53.2 billion.

[FailureToCommunicate]

6. It is an initial amount for an endowment fund.

[OnlinePoker]

7. There are restrictions on where much of this fund can be used

From their endowment page in the FAQ "Are there constraints...":

Harvard’s endowment is made up of more than 14,000 individual funds, the majority of which are “restricted.” This means that donors have specified that their gift must support a particular aspect of the University’s work, from specific scientific research to named professorships and dedicated scholarships. These philanthropic gifts are critical to many areas of our work, each with a unique person and story behind it.

https://www.harvard.edu/about/endowment/

[twodogsbarking]

8. Thanks so much.

More than one hundred educational institutions have endowments in excess of a billion dollars.

[praxEs]

11. Of those 100 only about 15 of them enjoy TOTAL endowments that surpass

Harvard's latest ONE YEAR return on its endowment.

[twodogsbarking]

12. The amounts held by Universities are unreal.

Pitt over $5 bil and PSU reported at $ 3.4 bil but I have heard it is over $ 4 bil.

[FakeNoose]

9. Does this mean scholarship money for Black students?

How will they determine which Black students are deserving of scholarships?

Harvard is still the elitist of elite schools, however I want to believe that this scholastic leader is trying to set an example. At least I hope this is a step in the morally right direction.

[praxEs]

10. I looked at the Reuters story again, carefully, and

I couldn't discern any indication in the cited story via Reuters that it was 'initial in respect to Harvard University contributing more' -- except that the 100,000,000 was drawn from current endowment to establish the fund. Salting the fund with resources from the current endowment is a little bit unusual I believe because endowed funds are more often initiated by external donors. My hardly deep understanding of university endowment is that they are opened so that other people and institutions may donate to them. I may be splitting hairs here and I am totally relying on the cited story.

"HMC, which invests the University's endowment and other financial assets, revealed that during fiscal 2021, the endowment's value increased 27 percent, to $53.2 billion; during fiscal 2020, when the pandemic began and the economic outlook remained uncertain, its value had appreciated 2.4 percent, to $41.9 billion." Oct 14, 2021. Harvard Magazine"

"Harvard Management Company returned 33.6 percent on its investments for the fiscal year ending in June 2021, skyrocketing the value of the University's endowment to $53.2 billion, the largest sum in its history and an increase of $11.3 billion from the previous fiscal year." Oct 15, 2021 The Crimson

Again, the .1 billion allocated to initiate the fund is barely a pittance in my opinion, especially in light of the outsized pandemic windfall. I find the argument above reflecting the presence of many restricted funds to be rather unconvincing inlight of the huge return on endowment of 11.3 billion.

[CTyankee]

13. I'd like to know what Yale is doing, in the face of Harvard's action.