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University of East London calls for £100m reparations fund

Pictured: Geoff Thompson, chair of governors of the University of East London

THE UNIVERSITY of East London’s chair of governors has called for UK universities that benefited from the slave trade to support a £100 million reparations fund.

Geoff Thompson, chair of governors of the University of East London, said the fund should be created to provide assistance to students from ethnic minority backgrounds.

Thompson, a former world heavyweight karate champion and the founder and executive chair of the Youth Charter, said: “The University of Glasgow has already taken the lead on this important and defining issue. Its report of a fortnight ago makes clear that the University received an estimated £200 million during the slave trade.

“In the middle of Black History month, in the aftermath of the Windrush scandal this summer, it seems prescient, ethical and right for our committee to support and help Glasgow, and others, seize this historic opportunity to invest in those who cannot afford or cannot see themselves graduating with a life-changing qualification.”

UEL has been using Freedom of Information requests to uncover which universities in the UK benefited from the slave trade between the 16th and 19th Century.

The research will be compiled next month.

While some institutions have responded to the requests stating that they did not exist as universities during the specified period, Thompson argues that they may have been functioning as a pre-cursor to an officially recognised university.

Thompson said: “We need to reverse this as a matter of urgency. Every university has historians, archivists and researchers who can help institutions inform them about their past.

“It is about how seriously we take the past to inform our future, and what we can do to help change lives. Education does changes lives. For the first time this year, London momentarily took over New York as the world’s murder capital.

"We know that education can change the way our young people think about themselves, what is possible and how they can get out of the cycle of crime, violence and deprivation. I am calling on all my fellow chairs and all institutions to take this ethical groundbreaking stand.”

In addition to disclosing whether or not they benefited from the slave trade financially, the FOI requests overseen by Thompson, the only black chair of a UK university, have also asked universities to reveal the ethnic make-up of their governance boards, their chairs and their chancellors.

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