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We are at a crossroads on the last day of Black History Month. As the Trump administration and its MAGA allies escalate their attacks on racial justice, NYU must decide whether it will comply with an agenda to destroy generations of progress toward equality — or stand on the side of truth and action by creating a reparations committee to deepen and defend our freedoms.
Across the country, we are witnessing an aggressive attempt to scapegoat diversity, equity and inclusion. The MAGA movement is systematically working to rip scholarships from Black students, shut down first-generation programs, erase the history of racial injustice from curricula and ban clubs, community centers and student organizations that advocate for marginalized communities.
This is a direct attack on our freedoms — to learn, to be and to protest. Universities should be at the forefront of resisting this agenda. Instead, some are choosing to stay silent or back down.
NYU must not comply. Instead of retreating, our university must take bold, proactive steps to confront its own ties to white supremacy and champion policies that rectify historical discrimination and repair ongoing inequalities. The clearest path forward is to establish an NYU Reparations Committee — a formal body dedicated to researching NYU’s ties to racial injustice and implementing tangible, reparative solutions.
NYU’s legacy of white supremacy requires action, not silence. From our earliest days, the university’s founder, Albert Gallatin, opposed Haitian independence and aligned himself with pro-slavery interests. The land under Washington Square Park — now a space of leisure and academic life — was once a potter’s field, where thousands of enslaved and free Black New Yorkers were buried without dignity. The surrounding area, once known as Little Africa, was a thriving Black community before it was systematically displaced through racist urban development policies.
Despite these ties, NYU has yet to take any coordinated steps to investigate or address its historical role in racial oppression. Unlike 106 other institutions of higher education, including Columbia, Yale and Georgetown, NYU has not conducted a formal study of its ties to slavery, provided financial or educational reparations or publicly acknowledged its historical involvement with white supremacy.
As right-wing forces push to erase the history of racial injustice and NYU sees Black student enrollment roughly cut in half, silence cannot be an option.
The creation of an NYU Reparations Committee would mark a critical step toward acknowledging our past and taking concrete steps to repair the harm our university’s policies — both historical and present — have inflicted on local Black communities.
This initiative needs widespread support from students, faculty and staff to succeed. If we want NYU to take meaningful steps toward justice, we must show that our community demands action.
NYU can either comply with the forces seeking to erase history, or it can lead in the fight for justice.
Sign on to our resolution to support the creation of the NYU Reparations Committee and share this call to action widely.
Join us at the Washington Square Arch on March 13 at 3 p.m. to rally for the creation of the NYU Reparations Committee — one week before the resolution goes to a vote in the SGA General Assembly. RSVP here.
JJ Briscoe, 2023-24 SGA Director of Diversity and Get Free NYC Leader
Enid Marie Acevedo Colón, Senator at-Large for Latin American and Spanish-speaking students
Sebastian Leon Martinez, Vice Chair for the SGA Diversity Committee
WSN’s Opinion section strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion section are solely the views of the writer.
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