An Interview with Ruth Simmons

The Brown Spectator’s Stephen Beale asks six questions of President Ruth Simmons regarding the University’s steering committee on slavery and justice, formed last year.

Stephen Beale: What were the motives for the creation of the committee? Who participated in the decision? What is the chain of events that led up to the formation of this committee?

Ruth Simmons: There was no chain of events. Issues related to the heritage of slavery—of which the reparations question was the loudest and most visible—had been current for years. I would encounter them from time to time in discussions with alumni and faculty, and it was my sense that there were gaps in the Brown community’s knowledge of its own historical record and that of the Brown family. While the reparations question certainly captured the public’s interest, it urged people to take sides on a narrow legal question, leaving wider areas of racial and social history unexplored. My motive was to create a process whereby Brown’s historical record could be developed and made accessible. In addition, I wanted to create a larger discussion about the ways in which societies have managed to confront troubling and difficult elements of their past, to clear the air and to move on. The Committee’s creation was actually recommended by the deans who correctly saw this as an opportunity to educate students about how to address complex questions.

SB: How were the committee members chosen? Who was responsible for making that decision? Were committee members chosen solely on the basis of their varied expertise or was consideration also given to ensuring that the committee reflected a diversity of social and political philosophies?

RS: The Dean of the College initially recommended committee members based on an understanding of their professional and academic expertise. Included in the group are persons who have some expertise with regard to other historical injustices – the Holocaust, the internment of Japanese-Americans, and South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, for example. In my letter to the committee, I wrote:

The steering committee will comprise students and faculty who represent the range of knowledge and perspectives that will be necessary for a thorough historical inquiry into these matters. It will be important to explore comparative and historical contexts that may shed light on the issues of reparations and retrospective justice (for example, the history of the Holocaust, the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII, apartheid in South Africa, etc.). A wide range of complicated legal questions, moral issues, and historical controversies will need to be examined rigorously and in detail. These are problems about which informed men and women of good will may ultimately disagree; however, the goal of the steering committee will not be to achieve a consensus, but to provide factual information and critical perspectives that will deepen our understanding.