Descendants of slaves connected to Georgetown will get admissions preference.
Except from the linked article:
“The most appropriate ways for us to redress the participation of our predecessors in the institution of slavery is to address the manifestations of the legacy of slavery in our time,” DeGioia said.
The effort includes holding a Mass of reconciliation and creating an institute for the study of slavery.
Georgetown will offer an advantage in admissions to descendants of slaves with links to the school, the statement said. It did not give details, but said applicants would get the “same consideration we give members of the Georgetown community,” usually a term for descendants of alumni."
Wow. Pretty cool. Very interesting approach. And note how that actually improves lives by giving broader access to an elite education, than some of the other initiatives that are just feel-goods for current students.
And of course, people who think this is unfair don’t have to apply to Gtown.
Unless Georgetown is actually going to do the genealogy research and reach out to these students, I don’t know how many applicants would even know if they were descendants of slaves who worked on Jesuit plantations in Maryland. And then, if they did reach out to these kids, would they really get enough of a leg up in admissions to actually change the composition of the student body?
The “reparations” seem so narrow as to be more for show than anything else.
“Your ancestors were enslaved in Georgia? Sorry, we can’t help you.” This falls a little flat to me but I guess if it helps someone that is better than nothing.
So Georgetown is going to address its history with slavery. One way Georgetown is going to address its history is renaming two buildings. Georgetown is going to rename a building that was named after a Georgetown president.
There are people at Yale who don’t want to rename any buildings. Might erase history.
I think Georgetown has this correct.
I am curious how many students will now be able to get into Georgetown who had no chance.
I think it’s reasonable and a creative solution. Gtown is not responsible for making good for every single slave descendant.
The goal is not to “change composition of the student body” - the goal is to offer a helping hand to descendants whom prominent members of the university wronged.
While the cynic in me doubts many of said descendants will actually end up at Georgetown, kudos to the university for openly and compassionately dealing with its history. It – alongside of many American institutions – has a lot to atone for, and more Americans should be aware of this.
Great idea but the devil is in the details. If it’s just a legacy tip in the admission pool it may have no effect. And I doubt they’ll be able to show any visible data about the results due to potentially identifying students.
I love how half of CC discussions are devoted to how unfair it is that URM prefs and legacy prefs exist. Now that Gtown is taking an URM boost and “doubling up” by layering a legacy boost on top as the frosting, it’s just not enough effort. Lol. Can’t have it both ways!
““Your ancestors were enslaved in Georgia? Sorry, we can’t help you.” This falls a little flat to me but I guess if it helps someone that is better than nothing.”
Presumably, nearly all of the descendants of American slaves alive today are African Americans. And as such they are already eligible for a significant admissions boost as a URM. Thus, an argument can be made that, admissions-wise, Georgetown has already to some degree addressed the legacy of slavery among all descendants of slaves from Georgia and everywhere else in the US, not just those with slavery connections to Georgtown… While I’m not specifically familiar with Georgetown admissions policies, and hard numbers are difficult to come by, my impression among private colleges in general is that a URM admissions boost alone is often greater than a legacy admissions boost alone.
In any case, it appears that descendants who can show a slavery connection to Georgetown will be eligible for a double boost – comparable to what a URM with legacy status already gets today.
I think Scipio’s analysis is the right one. Personally, I think what Georgetown is doing here makes sense.
I’m going to spill the beans on a “secret” that most people are completely unaware of.
At elite colleges like Georgetown, a shockingly high percentage of the students who identify as black actually immigrated to the US as children from Africa or the Caribbean or are children of those who did very recently - i.e, they’re zeroth or first generation immigrants. In that respect, someone like Barack Obama - son of a native Kenyan - is fairly typical.
The percentage of students who are even partially the descendants of US slaves at elite colleges is quite a bit lower than people might think - maybe about 1/2 of what the reports show as the % of African-American students.
(If your children are friends with any Ghanese or Nigerian students, you may have heard them joke about how soft Asian “tiger” parents are compared to their parents. From what I’ve heard, the “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother” reads like a warm, cuddly lullaby to them )
That boost aka “affirmative action” is nowhere near as large as a legacy/developmental or athletic boost according to a relative, a few Profs, and several acquaintances who worked Ivy/elite college admissions.
And the difference was greater the further back one goes.
For instance, the older college classmate who was admitted to an Ivy because his grandparent who attended the woman’s college which later merged with that Ivy donated millions to her alma mater had GPA/SAT scores which were on the bottom end even for their athletic admits. And he was one of the classmates who struggled with the academics at our LAC which is ranked nowhere near as high as the Ivy he turned down for personal/political reasons(not radical enough for him).
And if one goes back to the mid-'60s and before…folks like one former president underscored the great difference between the old admission system at one Ivy which was basically legacy/developmental admission on steroids and the one implemented starting in the mid-late '60s when academic merit was given greater weight as was the case with my uncle’s graduating class(Yale '70).
I don’t think I’m evaluating this idea compared to other URM and legacy prefs.
I’m wondering if this is actually going to result in reparations, or just thinking nice thoughts. If the composition of the student body does not change due to this preference, it’s just thinking nice thoughts.
It will be interesting to see whether anyone gets in or gets a scholarship based on this preference who wouldn’t have done so otherwise.
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