It makes sense that African-American students at Princeton Theological Seminary have issued reparatory requests based on research tying much of the school’s current wealth to slavery, and it’s equally fitting that the school live up to its religious precepts in its response, according to some scholars.
The Association of Black Seminarians (ABS) has proposed that the seminary commit at least 15 percent of its approximately $1-billion endowment to multiple on-campus and international initiatives as an “act of restorative justice” that would “move American theological education away from its imperialistic, Eurocentric impulses towards a holistic, globally responsible posture.”
Following an internal audit begun in 2016 to assess the seminary’s relationship to slavery from its founding by the Presbyterian Church in 1812 to 1861 – the beginning of the Civil War – the ABS submitted a response in March to the audit report that concluded that PTS “benefited financially from those in its denominational family who owned slaves and who profited from the slave system. It also invested its funds in organizations that both profited from slavery and financed its expansion.”
Based on a recommendation in the report, the seminary formed a Historical Audit Task Force last fall. Its members – a dozen administrators, faculty, students, alumni and trustees – were charged with overseeing discussions and public events of the audit report and receiving responses to audit findings.
The ABS unanimously approved a written response that laid out a lengthy list of restitution demands, beginning with allocation of at least 15 percent of the current endowment by Jan. 1, 2020. That percentage is based on the slavery audit report’s finding that no less than 15 percent and possibly as much as 40 percent of the seminary’s revenue and current endowment derived from the enterprise of slavery.
The proceeds – about $150 million – would fund numerous recommendations, including:
· Full tuition, fees, room and board grants for all admitted African-American students, plus 10 identical grants for admitted Liberian students in light of the seminary’s “documented complicity in the creation of that nation and its ongoing exploitation by American interests.”
