Off Topic - Group Calls For SLU to Pay Reparations to Slave Descendants

[thetorch]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/st-louis-university-was-built-using-enslaved-labor-descendants-are-making-a-new-call-for-compensation

Question - Why did SLU allow this group to have their press conference on the SLU campus?

[JMM28]

Because Pestello is weak. Bring back Biondi. 

[wgstl]

32 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

Because Pestello is weak. Bring back Biondi. 

In an ideal world, this summer brings a ton of fresh faces 

[brianstl]

Speaking Thursday on the campus that her ancestors helped build, Proudie said her family made the decision to stand up not only for itself, “but for all the enslaved descendants of those who built this country.”

Her ancestors did not help build the campus she spoke on Thursday.  Construction on the “Lindell’s Grove” site didn’t begin until 1888.

[TheA_Bomb]

Not sure SLU can afford this and Ford's buyout.

[BrettJollyComedyHour]

What a weird thing.

[OkieBilliken]

Maybe they should also pay reparations for anyone who bought basketball season tickets this year.   

[ACE]

1 hour ago, BrettJollyComedyHour said:

What a weird thing.

Yeah, starting a thread about this on a college basketball message board certainly is.... but not surprising.

 

[JMM28]

1 minute ago, ACE said:

Yeah, starting a thread about this on a college basketball message board certainly is.... but not surprising.

 

Eh it is a national "news" story about SLU so its a very legitimate thread. 

The weird thing is that there are people among us that think like this. 

[Pistol]

11 hours ago, thetorch said:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/st-louis-university-was-built-using-enslaved-labor-descendants-are-making-a-new-call-for-compensation

Question - Why did SLU allow this group to have their press conference on the SLU campus?

 

11 hours ago, JMM28 said:

Because Pestello is weak. Bring back Biondi. 

Maybe SLU understands that banning them from campus or forcing them off campus could do major damage to SLU's case. If SLU wants to get off on the right foot with this group and limit its financial downside, they're doing the right thing by letting them use campus for this. You don't have to like it to be able to understand the optics. It's not a question of strong vs. weak leadership, it's smart vs. stupid.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at how other colleges have responded when faced with the same or similar circumstances. There's a wide range:

• Virginia passed a law requiring 5 public universities (including VCU) to "make reparations through scholarships or community-based economic development and memorial programs".
• Georgetown created a $400,000-a-year reparations fund.
• Harvard set up a $100 million endowment fund for slavery reparations (Harvard's primary endowment is estimated to be near $50 billion).

UVA set up Universities Studying Slavery (USS), a consortium of over 100 colleges sharing best practices as they work through dealing with slavery in their histories. SLU is one of the schools participating.

SLU is one of many schools facing pressure from what is a national movement. I haven't been able to find any legal precedent that suggests SLU would actually be on the hook for a large amount of money. More likely, SLU will work with this group to address it in a way that involves a financial commitment, education, and memorialization, and it won't be anywhere near the numbers we're seeing in the headlines. If SLU actually does become the school that has to work through the legal system for this case, the current judiciary is going to be friendlier to the defendants than the plaintiffs. If it goes all the way to the top, I don't think the people who just killed affirmative action are going to open the door to broad-based reparations.

SLU will be fine.

[billikenfan05]

18 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

Eh it is a national "news" story about SLU so its a very legitimate thread. 

The weird thing is that there are people among us that think like this. 

I’d go as far as to say it’s more legitimate than the thread that lonely fan from Detroit posted or any non-SLU St. Louis pro sports thread. 

[slufan13]

Between this and Joe Biden's economy, the SLU fans from Kentucky are gonna be pissed. 

[2010andBeyond]

6 minutes ago, Pistol said:

 

Maybe SLU understands that banning them from campus or forcing them off campus could do major damage to SLU's case. If SLU wants to get off on the right foot with this group and limit its financial downside, they're doing the right thing by letting them use campus for this. You don't have to like it to be able to understand the optics. It's not a question of strong vs. weak leadership, it's smart vs. stupid.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at how other colleges have responded when faced with the same or similar circumstances. There's a wide range:

• Virginia passed a law requiring 5 public universities (including VCU) to "make reparations through scholarships or community-based economic development and memorial programs".
• Georgetown created a $400,000-a-year reparations fund.
• Harvard set up a $100 million endowment fund for slavery reparations (Harvard's primary endowment is estimated to be near $50 billion).

UVA set up Universities Studying Slavery (USS), a consortium of over 100 colleges sharing best practices as they work through dealing with slavery in their histories. SLU is one of the schools participating.

SLU is one of many schools facing pressure from what is a national movement. I haven't been able to find any legal precedent that suggests SLU would actually be on the hook for a large amount of money. More likely, SLU will work with this group to address it in a way that involves a financial commitment, education, and memorialization, and it won't be anywhere near the numbers we're seeing in the headlines. If SLU actually does become the school that has to work through the legal system for this case, the current judiciary is going to be friendlier to the defendants than the plaintiffs. If it goes all the way to the top, I don't think the people who just killed affirmative action are going to open the door to broad-based reparations.

SLU will be fine.

Yeah, regardless of how you feel about this personally, banning them would be far more likely to create a major controversy. Let them chirp and hope it blows over soon. 

[ACE]

1 hour ago, JMM28 said:

Eh it is a national "news" story about SLU so its a very legitimate thread. 

The weird thing is that there are people among us that think like this. 

Is this really any more "weird" than millions of people who think the 2020 election was "stolen" and that a sizable mob was so stirred up by social media conspiracies that they grabbed their pitchforks and broke into the Capitol? People have plenty of "weird" thoughts.

[DirtyRican]

Question-will this in anyway hinder my ability to get into Humphrey's at 3 pm on Friday?

[billikenfan05]

Forget it.

[wgstl]

1 minute ago, DirtyRican said:

Question-will this in anyway hinder my ability to get into Humphrey's at 3 pm on Friday?

Need Stu to look into this .

[billikenfan05]

37 minutes ago, DirtyRican said:

Question-will this in anyway hinder my ability to get into Humphrey's at 3 pm on Friday?

SLU’s Gonna have to start taking a cut of the cover charge. 

[thetorch]

56 minutes ago, Pistol said:

 

Maybe SLU understands that banning them from campus or forcing them off campus could do major damage to SLU's case. If SLU wants to get off on the right foot with this group and limit its financial downside, they're doing the right thing by letting them use campus for this. You don't have to like it to be able to understand the optics. It's not a question of strong vs. weak leadership, it's smart vs. stupid.

Meanwhile, I'm looking at how other colleges have responded when faced with the same or similar circumstances. There's a wide range:

• Virginia passed a law requiring 5 public universities (including VCU) to "make reparations through scholarships or community-based economic development and memorial programs".
• Georgetown created a $400,000-a-year reparations fund.
• Harvard set up a $100 million endowment fund for slavery reparations (Harvard's primary endowment is estimated to be near $50 billion).

UVA set up Universities Studying Slavery (USS), a consortium of over 100 colleges sharing best practices as they work through dealing with slavery in their histories. SLU is one of the schools participating.

SLU is one of many schools facing pressure from what is a national movement. I haven't been able to find any legal precedent that suggests SLU would actually be on the hook for a large amount of money. More likely, SLU will work with this group to address it in a way that involves a financial commitment, education, and memorialization, and it won't be anywhere near the numbers we're seeing in the headlines. If SLU actually does become the school that has to work through the legal system for this case, the current judiciary is going to be friendlier to the defendants than the plaintiffs. If it goes all the way to the top, I don't think the people who just killed affirmative action are going to open the door to broad-based reparations.

SLU will be fine.

It is one thing to entertain a political movement.  It is another to placate to a group who is making baseless claims and seeking extraordinary damages through lies and faulty economics.  By catering to the extreme, in this case a group requesting hundreds of millions of dollars, Pestello has set himself up to pay a higher price.  What he should do is shut them down until they have a much more reasonable and thought out case.

What SLU should be doing for reparations is lowering the cost of their programs, cutting useless majors that don't equal jobs in our economy, and place a focus on creating majors that foster entrepreneurship, new technologies, and real free market economics.  I hate to see an institution of higher learning embracing Marxist policies of wealth distribution and foisting it on their students and donors.  

There are 50 million people currently living in slavery in the world today.  That is a worthwhile cause that SLU should be addressing.  If they want a mea culpa for past acts fix the current problems happening right now.

 

[thetorch]

7 minutes ago, billikenfan05 said:

SLU’s Gonna have to start taking a cut of the cover charge. 

Rumor has it when Ford gets fired he's using that money to franchise the Humphrey's experience.  Humphrey's coming to Berea college campus in 2026.

[JMM28]

2 minutes ago, thetorch said:

Humphrey's coming to Berea college campus in 2026.

If Lindenwood gets a Humphreys, might as well shut SLU down totally. 

[billikenfan05]

3 minutes ago, thetorch said:

Rumor has it when Ford gets fired he's using that money to franchise the Humphrey's experience.  Humphrey's coming to Berea college campus in 2026.

See now this is a conversation worth having here. Humphrey's where you get to watch failed college basketball coaches talk basketball for an hour every Monday night. Forget karaoke Mondays.

[JMM28]

4 minutes ago, thetorch said:

lowering the cost of their programs, cutting useless majors that don't equal jobs in our economy, and place a focus on creating majors that foster entrepreneurship, new technologies, and real free market economics. 

This is what all schools need to be doing, frankly. There is a reckoning that has arrived at a lot of places already and is coming for all. There are lower high school graduating classes. Lower applicant pools. More people saying "Wait why wouldn't I go to a trade union apprenticeship and make 60-70k by the time I am 21?" Multi million dollar budget deficits are wiping out useless programs all over the country. Some of these being triggered by defaults on debts for lack of revenue because of that declining enrollment. It isn't going to be a pretty place in higher education over the next decade, I assume. 

[BrettJollyComedyHour]

4 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

"Wait why wouldn't I go to a trade union apprenticeship and make 60-70k by the time I am 21?"

Likely because those jobs often take a toll on you physically and leave your body broken by the time you're 50.

[billikenfan05]

3 minutes ago, BrettJollyComedyHour said:

Likely because those jobs often take a toll on you physically and leave your body broken by the time you're 50.

You can probably save and invest more money and retire by the time you're 50. Not everybody is made for college, not every body is made for trades. I was made for neither as far as I can tell, I chose college. I don't regret it, but I don't not regret it.