Recently, the Ivy League institution released a statement that said its apology is a component of its “ongoing work to understand its history and connections to slavery.”
According to CNN, other steps from the school will include its Yale and Slavery Research Project and launching several actions and initiatives based on the project’s findings.
“Confronting this history helps us to build a stronger community and realize our aspirations to create a better future,” said Yale’s president, Peter Salovey. “Today, on behalf of Yale University, we recognize our university’s historical role in and associations with slavery, as well as the labor, the experiences, and the contributions of enslaved people to our university’s history, and we apologize for the ways that Yale’s leaders, throughout our early history, participated in slavery.”
The press release from Yale also asserted that several of Yale’s early leaders and founders were enslavers, with the work of enslaved people contributing to the construction of Connecticut Hall, the oldest building on campus.
Additionally, it stated that notable Yale alums also worked with New Haven authorities in 1831 to thwart a proposed college for Black men, which would have been the first in the U.S.
This shouldn’t be breaking news for people who have at least minimal knowledge of the history of this country. Several institutions, conglomerates and landmarks in this country which are still flourishing and standing to this day were built on the backs of enslaved Black folks.
I’m sure this discovery by Yale just didn’t happen out of the blue. This school is regarded as one of the most prestigious in the world and has a reputation for selecting the most intelligent minds in the academic community.
It shouldn’t take them almost 200 years to realize that their forefathers were slave owners. It seems that this apology is more for public perception than it is about helping the healing of the people who still suffer from the effects of slavery.
Basically, Yale’s apology seems insincere and too little and too late.