While academics and reparations advocates across the country have hailed the slavery and justice report as a landmark historical study, it remains unclear whether the report will have a domino effect and lead other institutions to examine their own ties to slavery.
What is clear, according to several scholars who study black history and reparations, is that universities in both the North and the South have complex historical connections to slavery that are worthy of further examination.
Brown's report, which was released Oct. 18, is the culmination of nearly three years of research and discussion by the University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice. It outlines the University's ties to slavery, examines models for restorative justice and the history of the reparations movement in America and makes recommendations.
Scot French, associate professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Virginia, said the report is useful as the first of its kind.
"I think that everybody looks to Brown as a leader among institutions of higher education in doing this kind of self-study," he said.
Alfred Brophy, author of "Reparations: Pro and Con," said he suspects that after Brown, Yale University will "be the next domino" to thoroughly investigate its connections to slavery.
"Then Harvard will have to do it. And then I think every Ivy except Cornell will do an investigation," he said, noting that Cornell was founded after the abolition of slavery.
"It's an embarrassment that Harvard, Yale and Princeton haven't done more with the talent and resources they have," said Brophy, who is a law professor at the University of Alabama. "It is arrogant of them to suggest they don't have these same issues in the absence of investigation."
Brophy said reparations advocates should respond positively to Brown's report if they want to see other institutions undertake similar studies.
"No institution is going to want to go through this difficult and expensive process of understanding if afterward they're told they didn't do enough."
He added that the committee's recommendations indicate a new direction for the reparations movement. "Reparations is not about checks to individuals. It is about understanding the connections of the past to the present and how these legacies continue to affect us today," he said.
But any Southern institution's inquiry into slavery would be considerably different from those of Northeastern universities, Brophy said.
William Darity '74, a professor at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also serves as director of the Institute of African American Research, said he doubts that UNC has ever pursued an official report on its ties to slavery, but he noted that the university has developed an online museum of its own history.
No inquiries comparable to Brown's are underway, and none have been publicly announced since the report's release. Still, Brophy said he expects other universities will follow suit.
"I think these (inquiries) are going to be very interesting," Brophy said.
At Brophy's own institution, former president Basil Manly was not only ardently pro-slavery but also swore in Jefferson Davis as president of the Confederate States of America in 1861.
Brophy was among Alabama faculty who successfully advocated for an institutional apology in 2004.
"One of the arguments against the University of Alabama apology was 'Where does it end?'"
The depth of inquiry into the lasting effects of slavery may be limitless, Brophy said.
"A third of African-Americans live in poverty and about 10 or 11 percent of non-Hispanic whites live in poverty," Brophy said.
Darity, who teaches an undergraduate course about the economic and social history of blacks at UNC, said while he would like to see the university develop a committee similar to Brown's, he believes a national examination is necessary.
"What we really need is a national commission that addresses the historical relationship between this nation and slavery and white supremacy," he said, adding that he hopes Brown and other universities will advocate for such a commission.
Brophy said the institution with perhaps the greatest intellectual ties to slavery is the College of William and Mary. In the years leading up to the Civil War, Thomas Dew, the college's president, was a leading pro-slavery theorist.
In unraveling the connections between institutions of higher education and slavery, Brophy said there is a tendency to focus too heavily on financial ties. He views intellectual connections to slavery - like condoning or supporting it - as more egregious.
He said some Northern institutions had stronger intellectual connections to slavery than Brown. "Both Harvard and Yale, in the wake of the fugitive slave law of 1850, had people saying, 'don't help the slaves,'" he said.
Yale's Calhoun College was named after John C. Calhoun, a South Carolinian who was a leading advocate of slavery. Brophy said Harvard Law School has an endowed chair named for Isaac Royall, a wealthy merchant who profited from notoriously brutal slave labor in sugar fields in the West Indies.
"Harvard Law School has taken some real blood money," he said.
French, the UVA professor, said slavery is a fundamental part of the history of his university, which was founded by Thomas Jefferson.
"Jefferson is both extolled for his genius in creating the Declaration of Independence, but he's also known as a slaveholder," French said.
"He described slavery as a great evil and horror, as a moral wrong and a great social evil. But for whatever reason he found it impossible to take steps in his own life against slavery," he said, noting that Jefferson did not free his slaves at the time of his death.
For some schools, the connection to slavery is even more direct. "Some schools literally owned human beings," Brophy said. "University of Alabama owned people."
French said he was unsure whether UVA owned slaves. "I do know UVA employed slave labor that was hired out by others," he said.
"(Some argue that) UVA for many years was simply operating under the color of state and national law," French said. "I think in contemporary terms we would view this as indefensible."
He added that UVA allowed faculty members to own slaves and students to own "body servants."
"Students were not allowed to house their slaves on the (central) lawn," he said. "What that meant was a kind of system where slaves lived off the ground."
Any potential future inquiries should not simply focus on slavery, Brophy said. "The legacy of Jim Crow may be greater," he said.
There are broader connections that must be considered too, Brophy said.
"You may not have made money off of the slave trade," he said. "But you sure took a lot of money from the products of slave labor."
