Yale Issues Formal Apology After Research Finds Historic Ties to Slavery

Yale University has issued a formal apology due to findings uncovered in Yale and Slavery: A History, authored by David Blight, professor of history and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. The book contains the full findings of the Yale and Slavery Research Project, a long-term initiative launched by Yale in 2020 to better understand the school’s historical connections to slavery and the slave trade. “Confronting this history helps us to build a stronger community and realize our aspirations to create a better future,” writes Yale University president Peter Salovey, and Josh Bekenstein, senior trustee of the Yale Corporation. “Today, on behalf of Yale University, we recognize our university’s historical role in and associations with slavery, as well as the labor, the experiences, and the contributions of enslaved people to our university’s history, and we apologize for the ways that Yale’s leaders, over the course of our early history, participated in slavery.Acknowledging and apologizing for this history are only part of the path forward. These findings have propelled us toward meaningful action to address the continued effects of slavery in society today.” The research team did not find any...