Columbia University released a report this week detailing its historical ties to slavery. The school becomes yet another that in recent years has made this discovery.
Eric Foner, a history professor at the university, wrote the findings in “Columbia and Slavery: A Preliminary Report.” While the report did not make any findings that the university itself had owned slaves, many leaders at Columbia, which was originally called King’s College, had personal ties to slavery.
“From the outset, slavery was intertwined with the life of the college,” Foner writes. “Of the ten men who served as presidents of King’s and Columbia between 1754 and the end of the Civil War, at least half owned slaves at one point in their lives. So did the first four treasurers.”
