by Neetu Chandak
Georgetown University students voted in favor of increasing their tuition to pay for descendants of slaves sold by university affiliates nearly 200 years ago.
More than 2,500 votes were cast in favor of the semester fee Thursday, according to a Georgetown University Student Association tweet.
The results of the referendum are as follows: 66.08% for yes (2541 votes), 33.92% for no (1304 votes). This means that the referendum passes.
— GUSA Election Commission (@GUSAElections) April 12, 2019
The fee, if passed by the school’s board of directors, would benefit the descendants of the 272 enslaved people sold by a Jesuit society affiliated with Georgetown in 1838, known as GU272.
“Our students are contributing to an important national conversation and we share their commitment to addressing Georgetown’s history with slavery,” Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson said in a statement Friday.
The fee would be $27.20 for each student per semester. Funding could possibly support projects like K-12 education and college scholarships, according to the school’s newspaper The Hoya.
The fund would also be the first to focus on slavery reparations by a notable American institution, The New York Times reported.
“The school wouldn’t be here without them,” Georgetown junior and GU272 descendant Shepard Thomas said, according to The NYT.
Thomas added that the fee number comes from the number of people sold, The NYT reported.
Georgetown announced a special affirmative action policy for GU272 descendants in 2016. Two students were admitted to the university in 2017 through the policy.
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Neetu Chandak is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation. Follow Neetu on Twitter.
Photo “Georgetown Students” by the University of Georgetown.
Reparations is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of! Makes me barf at the ignorance! All races have been mistreated at one time or another! None of us living today had anything to do with it & neither did any of our folks & I would never pay a penny!! College students are SO stupid these days! Get a good close look at these faces & see what ignorance looks like! College! HA! They need a “common sense” school! (If anybody deserved anything, it would be the Native Americans!)
I agree , this is just ridiculous. Everyone needs to let history be history and we should all learn from it !!!
Where did these snowflakes come from. Kick them out of college and force them to go to work first and develop some real values, then they can go back and pay their own way.
Those kids parents are paying for their tuition, the parents should cut off their funding for giving away money that didn’t belong to them and see how they vote then! Do you own slaves? I do not and never have, never will, Nor do I know anyone that has, Its ridiculous for anyone who has not been a slave and doesn’t know anyone that was, to expect to be compensated for something they had nothing to do with and did not affect them! If you want to have a good life, I don’t care what the color of your skin is, Get off your ass and work hard and good things will happen!
Umm who are they paying? Women and children being found through these sex traffic rings that are going on? The slaves that are still being captured in the countries around us? The slaves from the past are no longer with us. Who would get this money? Somone who can only imagine what their ancestors went through? Ok then what about the Irish children that where enslaved, the vietnamese that where enslaved…. every nationality had slavery at one time. It’s in the past, how about yall put that money towards helping bust these traffic rings that are happening around the us today!
I rarely read anything about Irish slavery! That too mattered. Do you know of any reparations for them?
I am appalachian american, and I demand reparations.
–ccw
Uhhhh ……Why? On what grounds?
Have they been able to pay for their student loans or are we taxpayers funding those?