Penn unveils new findings on history with slavery: Over 75 former trustees owned slaves

Penn has announced a range of significant findings into the University's history with slavery. In a statement dated June 28, the University wrote that 75 of Penn's former trustees were slave owners, including Penn’s first Provost, William Smith. The University also paid a Penn professor for work done by an enslaved man whom he owned, and sent faculty members to raise money from slave-owning families. 

"In this and other ways, the labor of enslaved people was used to support and care for Penn faculty and students," the statement read. 

Penn President Amy Gutmann also listed five action items that the University planned to take in light of these findings. Apart from supporting further research into the issue, Penn plans to develop a website to serve as a repository of the information, supporting the continued research of the Penn Slavery project, and join the Universities Studying Slavery consortium — a coalition of schools dedicated to studying the legacies on slavery on contemporary life. 

Penn's Thursday announcement is a distinct reversal from a position adopted two years ago. 

In 2016, after Georgetown University publicly acknowledged the university's own connection to the slave trade, Penn Director of Media Relations Ron Ozio told The Philadelphia Tribune that “Penn has explored this issue several times over the past few decades and found no direct University involvement with slavery or the slave trade." ...