Black candidates already get a diversity boost, so I see this “atonement” making zero net difference, unless Grutter v Bollinger is overturned.
“…a legacy tip is only in play if one’s parents or sometimes grandparents not only attended a given school, but also had an established history of donating substantial amounts…and we’re not talking $50-a few hundred per year….”
If we are talking about large donations as a big part of the equation then that becomes more of a Developmental admit rather than a Legacy admit. I’m talking about pure Legacy. Stanford formally designates whether you qualify for Legacy status. They send you a letter declaring you a Legacy. And getting that designation does not depend on donations. My point was that I think the URM boost is greater than the Legacy boost, not that it is bigger than Legacy plus huge donations. So by asserting that it’s the donations and not the legacy that is the key factor, I think you are mostly agreeing with me.
For the Georgetown admissions we are talking about, I think it would be unusual for these descendants of slaves to have made big donations to Georgetown somewhere along the way - if for no other reason than they probably have had no further connection to the place beyond their enslaved ancestors. So in other words for these applicants we are likely talking about the boost (however large or small) from pure Legacy and not from Legacy + Big Bucks.
“His conclusion was that the biggest boost in elite college admissions is being African American – equivalent to an extra 230 SAT points on a 1600 scale. Second best hook is recruited athlete – 200 points. Third best is Hispanic – 185 points. Fourth best is alumni child – 160 points.”
This aligns pretty well with my informal observations of results threads on CC. Although for a really desirable recruited athlete, say a proven 1000 yard rusher, I might bump that above being African American, although chances are good he might well qualify for both.
“FYI - just heard NPR report on this while driving - Apparently Georgetown Jesuits kept meticulous records and know exactly who those (270- something) slaves were+ their marriage, children’s birth, and death records and have now reached out to all descendants”
That’s an incredible stroke of good luck. Did the piece say why the Jesuits went to the trouble to keep those records?
“wondering that, if an applicant didn’t have enough qualification to get into Georgetown with African American hook, would it be really helpful to admit him with even more boost? Would he really be able to do the academic work?”
SculptorDad, these boosts are not used to “raise the dead.” There’s no reason they are not going to have the person have reasonable academic chops. I thought you said you already knew a lot about URM admissions from what you read on CC.
@Scipio It was a semi quick news piece on NPR- didn’t say why they kept records just said they kept meticulous records (marriages birth children deaths) and they know exactly who descendants are and have gotten in touch with them.
I am hearing on twitter that the jesuits are working on doing more -possibly a half scholarship at least but nothing confirmed…
This article from Wash Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/09/01/georgetown-panel-urges-university-to-apologize-for-its-role-in-slavery/
Also says they are renaming a residence hall named after Mulledy, to Issac Hall after one of the slaves, a man named Isaac. and renaming the Hall McSherry Hall to Anne Marie Becraft Hall -after a free woman of color. ((looking right at you Yale 
)
"Students at Georgetown held a sit-in outside DeGioia’s office in November to protest the Mulledy and McSherry building names and other issues.
Soon afterward, the university stripped the priests’ names from the buildings. Now the building once known as Mulledy Hall will be renamed Isaac Hall, honoring the first of the 272 slaves listed in documents of the 1838 sale. And what was once McSherry Hall will be renamed Anne Marie Becraft Hall, to honor a free woman of color. According to the report, she was “a trailblazing educator” with roots in the Georgetown neighborhood in the 19th century."
"Mulledy and McSherry organized the sale of 272 slaves to Louisiana businessmen while the former was college president and the latter held the title of superior of the Maryland Province of the Jesuits.The slaves were taken to various plantations in Louisiana. Many were then sold and resold.
The sale was controversial at the time. Jesuit authorities in Rome were initially inclined to support emancipation, the report said, and they imposed several conditions on any sale, including a mandate that slave families should not be divided.
That condition and others were not honored."
“Melissa Kemp, 27, a descendant from Somerville, Mass., said she appreciated in theory the university’s action on admission preferences for slave descendants. But she worried about how many would reach Georgetown’s academic standards. “You’re dangling an apple a little too high for some of these students,” she said.”
There is a link on the bottom of this article to the full Georgetown report.
I think it’s awesome that it’s not the window-dressing of changing a name which does nothing other than assuage current students’ feelings, but that it is direct action for those descendants of those harmed. It’s so much meaningful because there is a direct link between true harm and effort at some sort of restitution, vs manufactured “outrage.” After all, the “outrage” isn’t that there is a building with a slave trader’s name on it that people have to walk by. The “outrage” is in the actual slavery.
I gotta say, I love Jesuits.
Not sure when this article /news piece is from i.e. recent or not? Talks about how they found /finding descendants - Said they started doing DNA tests… Perhaps there could be more?
"But that changed in late January when a Georgetown alumnus named Richard Cellini gave her a call. “He’s telling me that he thinks there is maybe a connection to my family to those who were owned by the Jesuits who ran Georgetown and he said some names have come up that are connected to you,” she said. “And when he said Cornelius Hawkins, it was almost no question.”
“Cellini created Georgetown Memory Project and hired several genealogists, including Judy Riffle, to track down the descendants of these slaves.”
“They were put on three different plantations in Louisiana: one in Maringouin, another in Terrebonne Parish and another in Ascension Parish near Donaldsonville.”
“Cellini thinks more than half of Maringouin’s 1,200 residents are direct descendants of the Georgetown slaves.”
“I would think there would be thousands of living descendants,” he said. As they are being tracked down, the issue of reparations has come up."
“The genealogists have started doing DNA tests to see if the slaves on different plantations were related. If you think you may be one of the descendants, click here for a link to the project organized by the Georgetown Memory Project and The New York Times.”
“Georgetown University Plans Steps to Atone for Slave Past” is the NYTIMES headline.
Atone sounds about right and they are trying to take tangible steps. It is great to see a school doing this.
While big bucks is often a big part of getting an actual legacy/developmental tip that makes a difference for a marginal candidate, it’s not always a mandatory prereq as I mentioned in my prior post.
For instance, if someone is a parent of an alum or even a non-alum with connections, fame, or high achievements, their child can end up with a legacy/developmental tip even if the alum/non-alum parent didn’t donate a lot of money or even have the financial wherewithal to do so. For instance, children of renowned scholars, authors, Olympic athletes, actors, politicians, etc.
One example I know of from my family is a renowned author within the modern Chinese literary world who was a friend of my father’s. Despite not having gone to that elite U, the author’s fame and renown in the Chinese literary world was such that when several influential Profs/Deans heard his son was applying to their elite U sometime in the '70s, they exerted their influence to get him admitted despite the fact his boarding school academic record was exceedingly marginal at best.
Renowned author’s son got admitted, but ended up not being able to handle the academic rigor/workload and ended up committing suicide toward the end of his first semester. My father found out by a chance meeting with him in the states while the author was in the process of wrapping up his son’s affairs at the university.
@cobrat - so far we have no indication that any of the descendants of the slaves sold by Georgetown are currently rich, famous, big Georgetown donors, Olympic athletes, politicians, authors, renowned scholars, or any of these other exceptions to routine practice of legacy admissions that Georgetown employs. So until we know different, all those factors are irrelevant to the question of how much of an admissions boost these particular individuals can expect from being granted legacy status based on their ancestors’ enslavement.
They will definitely accept some descendants of the sold slaves and publicize this fact
"While big bucks is often a big part of getting an actual legacy/developmental tip that makes a difference for a marginal candidate, it’s not always a mandatory prereq as I mentioned in my prior post.
For instance, if someone is a parent of an alum or even a non-alum with connections, fame, or high achievements, their child can end up with a legacy/developmental tip even if the alum/non-alum parent didn’t donate a lot of money or even have the financial wherewithal to do so. For instance, children of renowned scholars, authors, Olympic athletes, actors, politicians, etc."
Or one could simply say “Celebrity-child status can be a tip as well” instead of stretching it out into so many sentences.
In fact, here’s a way to sum up all of your posts on this topic: “Like any other similar elite school, Georgetown gives some preference to legacies, developmental admits, URMs, and celebrity children. Now, they will additionally give a similar tip to students proven to be the descendants of the 272 slaves from the sale in 1838.” Brevity is awesome!
Posters should write their posts anyway they want. Use as many words as they want. Add anecdotes if they want.
@cobrat, your posts are fine. Thanks for sharing your thoughts,
^English composition prof here. I’ve NEVER felt the need to “revise” other people’s writing on this site to conform to my taste. I agree with @dstark.
So I have a question, as an African American who is applying to Georgetown (I’m a descendant of slaves, but evidently not Georgetown slaves because I haven’t been contacted), will the “URM boost” (if it is actually real) be mitigated for Blacks who aren’t related to those slaves. I think I have the stats and other things to be competitive even if I wasn’t black, but you never know these days. It’s great that Gtown is atoning for the past, though.
There’s no reason to assume anything will change for anyone else in the G applicant pool, white, black or purple. This is a narrow decision designed merely for the benefit of this particular set of descendants.
However, if you have reason to believe that you may be a descendant, I wouldn’t sit around and wait to be contacted.
@nikkuwadde - They shouldn’t be expecting a large chunk of college eligible students applying this year as part of this plan but can expect some students to be trickling in each year which in no way should impact applications for anyone else.
This step is to show the public that they are doing something meaningful as opposed to stopping at renaming buildings.
How would one even go about finding out something like that. My genological records don’t go back that far (I had to do a family tree project once). Should I contact the university to find out @Pizzagirl
NPR did another longer piece on the story this morning:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/01/492223040/georgetown-will-offer-an-edge-in-admissions-to-descendants-of-slaves
@NikkuWadde - I suggest contacting the Georgetown Memory Project group that has been researching and identifying the descendants of the slaves:
http://www.georgetownmemoryproject.org/
@NikkuWadde
The Georgetown slaves (owned by the Maryland Jesuits) were put on three different plantations in Louisiana: one in Maringouin, another in Terrebonne Parish and another in Ascension Parish near Donaldsonville.
Do you have relatives from that area?
If so you might want to check out this page/ organization link on Georgetown’s website they have lots of links to help people w genealogy and they have a link where you can contact them and they will help you:
http://slaveryarchive.georgetown.edu/descendants
“In the course of researching Georgetown’s connections to slavery, we have learned about many living descendants of the people who were once owned by Jesuits associated with the Maryland Province. The Georgetown Slavery Archive is dedicated to reaching out to descendants, gathering their knowledge of their family histories, and telling their stories.”
“Over the past several months, the search for descendants has become an important part of the Working Group’s activities, as well as a story of national significance, thanks to a remarkable story published in the New York Times on April 16, 2016. The search for descendants has also been significantly advanced by the independent efforts of the Georgetown Memory Project, headed by Georgetown alumnus Richard J. Cellini.”
“We recognize that these documents are immensely valuable to people conducting genealogical research. The originals can be accessed by researchers at the Booth Family Center for Special Collections in Lauinger Library at Georgetown University. Anybody who wants help tracing their ancestry to the Maryland Province slave community should contact us.”
I really like the specificity of their solution versus boiling the ocean and trying to atone for every single instance of slavery. It’s just a good thoughtful principle IMO.