Scholer said it is fitting to work with the religious groups at Harvard — which, like Georgetown, has issued a report in recent years about its ties to slavery — “because a lot of the moral argument for reparations comes out of religion.” He pointed to the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Isaiah, where that prophet preached about doing good and correcting oppression.
“From that we have arguments of what is the moral responsibility for the U.S. government and for institutions like Georgetown and Harvard to address oppression of the past and finally pay their fair share,” Scholer said.
At the first online meeting with Green and Savage-Narva earlier this month, he heard their desire to involve a broad range of people, from students to descendants and people of different ages and faiths, “not just acknowledging this history but actually making some substantive change.”
Green said it is an appropriate time, after the recent deaths of Tyre Nichols and other Black people in police custody, to consider reparations.
“We realize that reparative justice is a pathway to truly close the gaps that continue to exist in the United States of America as relates to race and to reckon with our original sin of racism,” he said. “We’re hoping that as the nation moves to its 250th year of its inception in 2026 that by that time we will have implemented a reparative justice program in this nation.”
This article originally appeared here.
