Penn used bodies of black people as teaching tools in the 1800s, student research reveals

Three months after Penn President Amy Gutmann formally acknowledged Penn’s ties to slavery in a University-wide email, student research revealed Penn's connection to slavery is more expansive than previously known.

On Friday, four students presented research related to Penn Slavery Project's findings that documented the relationships that several high-level faculty at Penn's medical school had with slavery — including the enslaved people they owned as well as the racist ideology they promoted in their work. The students also detailed the relationship between the University and owners of enslaved people, who rented property from Penn and had enslaved people work on that land.

With the guidance of History professor Kathleen Brown, the five undergraduate researchers in the Penn Slavery Project found in 2017 that of 28 founding University trustees they investigated, 20 held enslaved people. Their discovery led to the formation of Penn's faculty working group to look further into these claims.