Georgetown Students Push University For Action On Slavery Reparations
(CBS News) -- Georgetown University students gathered Thursday to protest the university's lack of progress on implementing reparations for descendants of slaves once sold by the school. Students voted overwhelmingly in favor of the plan in a referendum in April, but activists say so far little has been done to carry it out.
"The school has kept us in a sort of purgatory in terms of implementation," said Nile Blass, a member of the GU272 advocacy group, which created the referendum. "I think that what we've seen is a series of meetings that stressed the importance of the referendum and what it represents without timelines, without dates, without specific plans, without specific language. How many times can you be told that progress is being made without evidence?"
The referendum proposed that each student pay a fee of $27.20 per semester to benefit descendants of 272 enslaved people sold by the school in the 19th century. It was backed by 66% of student voters. Nearly 58% of the student body participated in the vote.
