Reparations scholars may name University in lawsuit

When John Witherspoon moved from Scotland in 1768 to assume the presidency of the University, then known as the College of New Jersey, he brought his wife, a 300 book collection and an invigorating leadership style. At the time of his death in 1794, he had listed among his possessions another piece of property: two slaves, each worth a hundred dollars.

Though slave ownership was legal at the time, a group of lawyers and academics may attempt to file a major reparations lawsuit against the University later this spring for its early ties to slavery. In addition to Witherspoon, numerous trustees and antebellum-era graduates owned slaves.

In an article published Feb. 21, USA Today reported the Reparations Coordinating Committee — which includes leading scholars and activist lawyers led by Randall Robinson and Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree — will file suit against major insurance, railroad and newspaper companies and universities with ties to slavery.

The universities named include Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Brown universities and the University of Virginia. The committee, however, has maintained strict secrecy about the exact timing and nature of the lawsuit.

University spokeswoman Marilyn Marks and Peter McDonough, general counsel for the University, said they knew nothing about the potential lawsuit.

An earlier reparations lawsuit targeting the government, Cato v. United States, failed in 1995. The new reparations team, including lawyer Johnnie Cochran and Harvard professor Cornel West GS '80, will face numerous legal challenges — such as how to stretch the statute of limitations on an alleged injustice from more than 150 years ago.

Dr. Ray Winbush, head of Fisk University's Race Relations Institute, argued that because slavery was a crime against humanity, no statute of limitation exists. He also suggested that the movement may extend beyond private companies and universities to the government.

Winbush justified reparations by linking slavery to the economic problems faced by many African Americans today.

"Just as wealth is passed on in this country," he said, "so is poverty."

Another reparations committee member, Dr. James Comer, agreed that slavery's negative consequences "were transmitted from generation to generation."

Comer is a Yale University School of Medicine psychiatrist specializing in child development.

He said reparations should be used to create social programs for former victims rather than given as individual payouts.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Those victims include African Americans who are descendants of slaves and those who still suffer the economic consequences of slavery.

"I think the important thing is to address the issue in a way that does not make race relations more difficult," Comer said. "The discussion about reparations allows us to be honest about what happened."

Whether the legal team will realize its goals of a national apology and payment of reparations remains unknown, as is the University's response to the still un-filed lawsuit.

But scholars say the debate surrounding a national reparations lawsuit may be just as important as the lawsuit itself.

Winbush emphasized the national dialogue that would go hand-in-hand with a large-scale reparations campaign.

"I think the reparations movement is going to constitute the largest public education campaign in history about what this country did to itself," he said.