By Black Star News
Photos: YouTube Screenshots\Wikimedia Commons
A new report has found that the University of Edinburgh, in the United Kingdom, played a major role in the creation of racist pseudo-scientific theories and profited immensely from slavery.
Edinburgh University was a major destination for professors who pushed false theories about supposed white supremacy in the 18th and 19 centuries. Th university was founded in the 16th century on money linked to slavery and colonial conquests.
Edinburgh’s Sir Peter Mathieson, who initiated the investigation, said the findings were “hard to read.” In a statement, Mathieson said the university was deeply sorry for “its role not only in profiting materially from practices and systems that caused so much suffering but also in contributing to the production and perpetuation of racialised thought which significantly impacted ethnically and racially minoritised communities.”
Mathieson also said: “I have confidence in its [the report] accuracy because I trust the experts that have produced it. I think we were seeking the truth – that’s really the purpose of a university, and it includes the truth about ourselves as well as the truth about anybody else.”
Here are a few major findings in the report:
(1) Edinburgh specifically sought donations from graduates with ties to slavery to help build some of the institution’s buildings.
(2) The university had a least 15 endowments from African slavery, along with 12 connected to British colonialism in South Africa, India, and Singapore.
(3) The university is in possession of 300 skulls, from the 19th century, of enslaved Africans by phrenologists. It was believed that skull shape was a determinant in a person’s moral character.
The report’s authors say their finding raises questions regarding Edinburgh’s role at the center of the Scottish Enlightenment in the 18th and 19th century. They wrote that the fact that Edinburgh’s history was “connected to slavery and colonialism, the violent taking of bodies, labour, rights, resources, land and knowledge is deeply jarring, not least for an institution so closely associated with the humanistic and liberal values of the Scottish Enlightenment.”
The report’s authors are asking the university to now use the money from those funding sources, connected to slavery, to hire Black and minority academics and to fund research combating institutional racism.
To Support our independent investigative journalism contributions are welcome via Cashapp to: $BlackStarNews
Also support Black Star News by buying merch from our brand new Black Star Store!
