Ta-Nehisi Coates told a group of students and faculty at Harvard that if the school really wants to atone for its past sins, it needs to pay up.

The Ivy League school held a conference on March 3 called “Universities and Slavery: Bound By History,” which aimed to unpack the university’s own past involvement in the institution of slavery. 

The day-long event included several panels and speakers, with the university’s president Drew G. Faust giving the opening remarks. “Harvard was directly complicit in slavery from the college’s earliest days in the 17th century,” said Faust, according to The Harvard Crimson. “This history and its legacy have shaped our institution in ways we have yet to fully understand.”