Students agree to create a reparations fund

Students at Washington DC’s Georgetown University voted last week to an increase in their tuition fees to benefit descendants of the 272 enslaved Africans sold nearly two centuries by the Jesuits who ran the school to secure its financial future. The increase of $27.2 (about £20) evokes the number of slaves sold and is an amount ‘not too onerous’ on the students. The student vote has to be agreed by the university’s board. The board agreed in 2016 to give admissions preference to descendants of the 272, and one of the first to be admitted under this policy, Shepard Thomas, said: ““Students here always talk about changing the world after they graduate. Why not change the world when you’re here?”​ The fund they voted to create would represent the first instance of reparations for slavery by a prominent American organisation. Read more here.