The Counter-Archive · Comparative Research
Universities Built on Plantations
The University of Alabama in Huntsville is not an exception. This page is The Counter-Archive’s verified comparative list: 62 institutions documented, 44 scored in depth, each one graded separately on five questions — A, was the campus sited on plantation land? B, did enslaved people build or operate it? C, did it benefit financially from slavery? D, is the land disputed? E, what has the institution done about it? Every grade — Documented, Reported, or Not documented — comes from a source actually read, and figures are attributed in line, never upgraded.
The Anchor Case
UAH / Jones Plantation
The list begins at home. The UAH campus sits on the plantation estate land of Alexander P. Jones in Huntsville, Alabama — A: Documented. The 1956 condemnation of Willie & Lola Jones’s homestead parcel ($900 award, acreage contested), the Jones family cemetery behind Morton Hall, and the ground-penetrating radar survey announced in May 2022 whose results were never published make it one of the list’s live disputes — D: Documented.
What this project does not claim: a slavery-derived founding endowment for UAH is not documented, and it is not claimed. The Counter-Archive claims the land, and the knowledge record — what the university knew about the ground it built on, and when it knew it.
The anchor case in full: What UAH Knew · Cemeteries · Institutional Knowledge
62Institutions documented
44Scored in depth
11Plantation land — Documented
24Enslaved labor — Documented
28Financial benefit — Documented
32 of 44With a documented land dispute
5Documented selling enslaved people
~10.7MMorrill Act acres taken from nearly 250 tribes (Lee & Ahtone)
The Burial-Ground Census
Fifteen campus burial grounds are on file across the list. This census is the center of the comparison, because it is where the pattern repeats most exactly: a survey is commissioned, a cemetery is confirmed or left uncounted, and the results are published — or they are not. Four of the second-tier schools examined (Tulane, Maryland, Missouri, WashU) had no campus enslaved burial ground identified in any source read. Hollins’s Green Ridge is included with its type stated — a post-emancipation Black church cemetery containing formerly enslaved people — and is not counted as an antebellum enslaved cemetery.
| Institution | Burial ground | Graves known / estimated | Survey done? | Results published? | Current status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UAH/Jones Plantation (anchor) | Jones family cemetery behind Morton Hall | Not enumerated in sources read (paper v12: 3 box graves + 2 headstones visible 2021) | GPR — yes: TVAR survey announced May 16, 2022; a second GPR (Hoksbergen), reported in Sept. 2026 correspondence, found no grave-pattern anomalies at the known cemetery | No — the 2022 results were never published; the 2026 finding exists as correspondence, not a published report | One marker installed spring 2020; 2019 monument announcement page later deleted; completion never announced |
| Clemson | Woodland Cemetery, over/beside the Fort Hill enslaved and convict-laborer burial ground | 604 possible unmarked graves (Oct. 2020); 667 final (Feb. 2021) — successive totals, not averaged | GPR — yes (Jul. 2020–Jan. 2021) | Yes — totals and policy reported by the university | Graves in place under 2022 non-disturbance policy; site reopened Jan. 2024 with pathways/gate; final memorial not documented |
| UGA | Old Athens Cemetery at Baldwin Hall | 105 gravesites; 63 containing remains; ~30 tested, most of African ancestry | Excavation during construction (2015), not GPR-led | Yes — counts reported | Remains reinterred at Oconee Hill Cemetery Mar. 2017 over descendant objection; remain there; memorial dedicated 2018; no post-2019 change documented |
| University of Alabama | Enslaved burials under a parking lot/garage; two named graves (Jack Rudolph; William “Boysey” Brown) | Not enumerated | Not documented | n/a | Markers placed at the two named graves (2004); other burials unmarked |
| LSU | Cemetery for enslaved plantation workers beneath the Student Health Center | Not enumerated | Documentary only — established from 1921 surveyors’ maps (Sluyter); 1938 construction reportedly uncovered graves | Documentary (project publication) | No memorial decision documented |
| William & Mary | College African burial ground | Unknown — location unknown | Not documented | n/a | HB 1980 (2021) imposes memorial and tangible-benefit obligations |
| Georgetown | College Ground (c. 1818–1833) | Most burials never relocated; count not enumerated in sources read | Not documented | n/a | Memorial pressed for by descendants; unbuilt; no 2024–26 development found |
| Sewanee | St. Mark’s community graveyard, University Cemetery | 148 lost graves | GPR — yes | Reported (project reporting) | Bronze markers planned |
| UVA | African American burial sites near the University Cemetery | 67 grave shafts identified | Survey — yes (method as reported) | Yes — reported by the university | Left undisturbed |
| Prairie View A&M | Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery, campus edge | 2,000+ believed (Reported, within an institutional source) | Not documented | n/a | Cemetery at campus edge |
| Emory | Oxford City Cemetery, segregated Black section (created 1839) | Not enumerated | Not documented | n/a | Descendant engagement and listening sessions; no lawsuit |
| Sweet Briar | Plantation Burial Ground, on campus | ≥60 burial sites (college-linked summaries); 54 estimated (Rainville 2008) | GPR — yes (400 MHz) plus gradiometer | Yes — Rainville (2008); partly inconclusive (grave-shaft signals at differing depths) | Memorial plaque and rededication 2003; descendant reconsecration 2008; no newer memorial verified |
| College of Charleston | Coming Street potter’s field (c. 1,000-bed dorm site) | Not established; up to 12,000 is a Reported historians’ estimate (WCIV) only | GPR — yes (Feb. 13–14, 2026; 199 swaths): inconclusive, no grave shafts noted | No — report unpublished as of May 2026 council minutes; release requires SHPO approval; a further GPR planned | Dorm project deferred by the Board of Architectural Review pending archaeological review; commemoration contemplated in design, not built |
| University of Richmond | Westham Burying Ground, on campus (112 UR Drive) | Total unknown; ≥20 graves documented to trustees in 1912; remains removed 1947 and mid-1950s to unknown locations | GPR — yes (NAEVA Geophysics): attempts to locate exact burials inconclusive | No standalone report found — the inconclusive result is known through Memorialization Committee coverage (The Collegian, 2023) | Memorial completed and dedicated Apr. 23, 2025, designed with the Descendants Council |
| Hollins | Green Ridge Baptist Church cemetery, beside campus (post-emancipation church cemetery with formerly enslaved burials — distinct type) | 113 persons (Klatka survey, as cited) vs. “over 120 graves” (Working Group post) — kept separate | Survey — yes; type not stated as GPR in sources read | No published survey report read | Restoration in progress in May 2020 (name plaque, ~20 names then identified); completion not verified |
The pattern, stated factually
Six of the fifteen grounds have had a GPR or equivalent geophysical survey (UAH, Clemson, Sewanee, Sweet Briar, Charleston, Richmond). Of those six, full results are public for two — Clemson (university-reported totals and policy) and Sweet Briar (Rainville 2008, itself partly inconclusive). The anchor case’s fact pattern — a survey was performed and its results were never published — recurs at Charleston (2026 GPR complete, report withheld pending SHPO release) and, in a variant, at Richmond (GPR inconclusive; no standalone report) and Sewanee (results at Reported grade). At the remaining grounds the recurring conditions are graves uncounted (LSU, Alabama, Emory, Georgetown), a location unknown (William & Mary), or remains moved over descendant objection (UGA). No institution in the census both completed a GPR survey and published a complete report of it other than Clemson and Sweet Briar.
The List — 44 Institutions Scored in Depth
Each institution is scored separately on the five questions; a strong grade on one says nothing about the others. The UAH/Jones Plantation anchor case heads the list. Full source attributions ride in the final column — nothing on this page stands on this page’s authority alone.
| University | A — Plantation land | B — Enslaved labor | C — Financial benefit | D — Land dispute | E — Response | USS member | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UAH/Jones PlantationAL · 1950 | Documented campus on Alexander P. Jones's plantation estate land (the Jones Plantation), Huntsville | Not documented Not documented (campus built 1960s; enslaved labor documented on the plantation, not the campus) | Not documented project documents the land and knowledge record; no slavery-derived founding endowment documented | Documented 1956 condemnation of Willie & Lola Jones homestead parcel, $900 award, acreage contested, forged-deed allegation (Willie signed with an X); Jones family cemetery behind Morton Hall; 2022 GPR results never published | Documented, partial one marker installed spring 2020; 2019 monument announcement page later deleted; no official report | No | Counter-Archive project records; MSSA paper v12 (in-house) — Notes: ANCHOR CASE. Site popularly called Avalon Plantation; 'Avalon' is unattested in period sources |
| Brown UniversityRI · 1764 | Not documented | Documented enslaved men, incl. Pero, labored on University Hall (College Edifice) | Documented Brown family slave trading incl. 1764 voyage of the Sally; early endowment substantially from slave-owners' wealth | Reported 2021 student referendums (89% / 85%) for descendant identification and reparations; no heirs' land claim | Documented Slavery & Justice report 2006; $10M Fund for the Education of the Children of Providence; Puryear Slavery Memorial 2014; Simmons Center | Yes | Slavery & Justice Report, Brown University (2006; digital 2nd ed.); JBHE 2007 — Notes: Pero Paget buried in Providence North Burial Ground |
| Harvard UniversityMA · 1636 | Not documented | Documented enslaved people worked on campus for presidents, faculty, students; 85 identified in 2022 report | Documented Isaac Royall Jr.'s Antigua plantation wealth endowed first law chair; Royall enslaved at least 60 people in Medford (per report) | Documented Lanier v. Harvard daguerreotype suit settled May 2025 (15 images relinquished to International African American Museum); Antigua & Barbuda PM's 2019 amends request | Documented Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery report 2022; $100M Legacy of Slavery Fund; Royall seal retired 2016, professorship 2022 | Yes | Radcliffe Institute, Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery (2022); Inside Higher Ed; Hyperallergic 2025 — Notes: Later internal-program count of 913 enslaved individuals is Harvard Crimson reporting, not the 2022 report figure |
| Yale UniversityCT · 1701 | Not documented | Documented enslaved labor on Connecticut Hall construction and in leaders' households; YSRP found no record Yale itself owned enslaved people | Documented part of Elihu Yale's fortune derived from purchase and sale of human beings (Madras); funded 1718 naming gift | Not documented | Documented Yale and Slavery Research Project 2020; Yale and Slavery: A History (2024); formal apology Feb 16, 2024 | Yes | Yale and Slavery Research Project, ysrp.yale.edu; Yale News, Feb 16 2024 — Notes: Calhoun College renamed Grace Hopper College 2017 |
| Princeton UniversityNJ · 1746 | Not documented Not documented as a plantation (first land donor was a slaveholder) | Documented (operating only) at least 16 enslaved people lived and worked at President's House, 1756-c.1822; construction not documented | Documented first nine presidents and all founding trustees owned enslaved people; 1766 on-campus Finley estate sale of six people; Cuban sugar-derived donations | Reported findings presented to NJ Reparations Council 2023; no descendant lawsuit | Documented Princeton & Slavery Project 2013-2024; 2019 Maclean House plaque; no apology or fund | Not confirmed | Princeton & Slavery Project, slavery.princeton.edu; Daily Princetonian — Notes: Do not conflate with Princeton Theological Seminary (separate institution; $27.6M commitment 2019) |
| Columbia UniversityNY · 1754 | Not documented | Documented (operating) enslaved domestic workers sustained King's College households and campus life | Documented founded partly with slave traders' money (Foner report); early donor wealth from West Indies slave-labor trade | Not documented | Documented Columbia University and Slavery project/report Jan 2017; residence-hall markers 2022; no apology or fund | Yes | Columbia University and Slavery report (Foner, 2017); AP Jan 2017 — Notes: Joined USS Feb 13, 2017 |
| Dartmouth CollegeNH · 1769 | Not documented | Documented Wheelock arrived 1770 with eight enslaved people whose labor cleared and maintained the school; at least 19 enslaved by Wheelock in his lifetime (counts vary) | Reported Dartmouth & Slavery Project documents complicity and profits incl. Wheelock's buying, selling, hiring out; Berkeley Whitehall scholarship link reported; no quantified figure | Not documented | Documented, limited library-led Ties That Bind exhibit, Dartmouth & Slavery Project, Enslavement Documents; no commissioned report or apology | No | Dartmouth Libraries, Dartmouth & Slavery Project; Enslavement Documents (Wheelock Collection) — Notes: Confirmed not a USS member in 2020 reporting |
| Rutgers UniversityNJ · 1766 | Not documented Not documented as a plantation; slaveholding families donated land and money; campus on Lenape land | Documented Will, an enslaved man hired out by his enslaver, laid Old Queens foundation, fall 1808 | Documented founders/trustees incl. slave trader Philip Livingston; Henry Rutgers's 1826 gift (interest on a $5,000 bond) stabilized the college | Reported Scarlet and Black documents Indigenous displacement and later land-grant money from sale of Indian lands; no current heirs' claim | CHUNK2: Morrill figures now Documented per the Land-Grab Universities database: New Jersey scrip 209,920 acres expected, 208,089 located; principal raised $115,945.95; U.S. paid $11,674.77; 31 cessions. | Documented Scarlet and Black vols. 1-3 (2016-2021); namings for Sojourner Truth, Will, James Dickson Carr; markers; no apology or fund | Yes | Scarlet and Black Project, Rutgers University; Rutgers University News, Nov 2016 — Notes: Sojourner Truth was enslaved by Hardenbergh relatives in Ulster County, NY; she never lived in New Jersey |
| Georgetown UniversityDC · 1789 | Not documented Not documented for DC campus; Maryland Jesuit plantations (White Marsh, St. Inigoes) supported the college | Documented enslaved people lived and worked on campus before and after 1838 | Documented 1838 sale of 272 enslaved people (GU272) for $115,000 to pay Georgetown's debts | Documented, ongoing GU272 descendants' reparations demands ($1B foundation proposed 2016); 2019 student fee referendum declined by university; College Ground burial site memorial unbuilt | CHUNK2: Reconciliation Fund accounting from Georgetown's own releases: $200,000 to 5 projects in April 2023 and $200,000 to 7 projects on Oct. 15, 2024 - $400,000 total documented, against the stated $400,000-per-year commitment (Georgetown News; slavery.georgetown.edu). No Georgetown release for a 2025/2026 round was found; The Hoya (2026) reports a spokesperson saying a third cycle was reviewed and a fourth would open in fall (Reported). The College Fix's 2025 'inactive' characterisation is partisan-only; its $400,000 total matches Georgetown's releases, but the inactivity claim is contradicted by the reported spokesperson statement - do not upgrade either way. No 2024-2026 GU272 Descendants Association litigation was found. | Documented Working Group report 2016; apology liturgy 2017; Mulledy/McSherry halls renamed; descendant admissions preference; Reconciliation Fund approx. $400,000/yr | CHUNK2: Distinct from the university's Reconciliation Fund (see D), the Descendants Truth & Reconciliation Foundation announced in Sept. 2023 a $42M trust ($15M initial Jesuit contribution plus $27M new: $10M from Georgetown and $17M from the Jesuits including estimated plantation-land value), toward the Jesuits' $100M pledge goal (descendants.org). Guardian reporting (June 2025) puts its scholarships at more than $170,000 to 25 students since fall 2024 - Reported; no foundation ledger of cumulative disbursements was found. | Yes | Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation report (2016); AP Sep 2016; Catholic News Service Mar 2021 — Notes: The Jesuit order's $100M pledge (2021) is the order's, not the university's |
| College of William & MaryVA · 1693 | Not documented Not documented for campus site; college owned an unnamed 18th-century tobacco plantation | Documented enslaved people built Wren Building, Brafferton, President's House; college held enslaved people for some 170 years | Documented in kind at least 21 people owned at one count; 100+ named incl. employees' and students'; plantation income not quantified | Documented college's African burial ground location unknown; VA HB 1980 (2021) requires descendant benefit | Documented Lemon Project (2009- ); Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved dedicated May 7, 2022 ($2.9M); Bray School Lab | Yes | Lemon Project, William & Mary; History News Network interview (Terry Meyers) — Notes: Lemon Project named for Lemon, a man enslaved by the college itself |
| University of VirginiaVA · 1819 | Not documented Not documented (site assembled for Central College; described as Monroe's former cornfield) | Documented enslaved laborers built and maintained UVA from 1817; Memorial honors 4,000 or more (UVA figure) | Documented university purchased enslaved people (1819, $125 as stated; Lewis Commodore 1832, $580 as stated, later sold); most labor rented | Documented descendant organizing; VA HB 1980 Enslaved Ancestors College Access Scholarship law in force from 2022 | Documented President's Commission 2013-2018; Memorial to Enslaved Laborers completed 2020, dedicated 2021; 67 grave shafts identified and left undisturbed | Yes (founder/host) | Encyclopedia Virginia, Slavery at the University of Virginia; UVA Today — Notes: No formal institutional apology distinct from commission/memorial/law response found |
| Washington and Lee UniversityVA · 1749 | Not documented | Documented college used labor of people it owned (until 1852) and rented them out | Documented 1826 Robinson bequest (counts vary: 70-80 / 73 / 84); most sold 1836 for more than $22,000 (Chronicle); three still owned as late as 1857 (JBHE) | Documented (naming dispute) Board voted 22-6 on June 4, 2021 to retain name; no heirs' land claim | Documented Ruscio 2014 acknowledgment with regret (expressly not an apology per Ruscio); 2016 marker naming the Robinson-enslaved; 2018 commission report | Yes | Inside Higher Ed 2014; JBHE 2016/2018/2021; Chronicle of Higher Education — Notes: Sale figure and headcounts conflict by source; keep attributed, do not merge |
| University of North Carolina at Chapel HillNC · 1789 | Not documented Not documented as a plantation; UNC granted some 200,000 acres of Chickasaw and Cherokee land, sold for profit (Bryan et al.) | Documented enslaved plasterers, brick-makers, carpenters built campus; enslaved college servants in dormitories and halls | Documented escheated estates' enslaved people sold by university attorneys; commissions and profits to trustees | Documented Silent Sam settlement ($2.5M to Sons of Confederate Veterans) voided Feb 12, 2020; statue not returned | Documented Slavery and the Making of the University exhibit; Unsung Founders Memorial 2005; Saunders Hall renamed Carolina Hall 2015; no apology or fund | Yes | UNC Libraries, Slavery and the Making of the University; Bryan et al., Environment and Planning D — Notes: UNC's own caveat: no record of a standing university-owned workforce |
| University of South CarolinaSC · 1801 | Not documented | Documented 'the Horseshoe was built by enslaved labor' (Presidential Commission final report) | Documented college owned a few enslaved people and contracted most enslaved labor from private owners; institutional sale not documented | Documented Wheeler Hill / Ward One Black neighborhoods displaced by university urban-renewal expansion, late 1950s-1970s; no reparations settlement | Documented, partly blocked 2017 plaques naming 16 enslaved people; 2021 commission report; renamings blocked by SC Heritage Act | Yes | Presidential Commission on University History final report, sc.edu; JBHE 2017 — Notes: Last surviving slave quarters on campus stands near the President's House |
| Clemson UniversitySC · 1889 | Documented campus core is Fort Hill, John C. Calhoun's plantation (about 450 of 1,100 acres in cotton; 70-80 enslaved, per Clemson brochure); more than 814 acres bequeathed by T. G. Clemson, 1888 | Not documented Not documented for enslaved labor (founded 1889); early campus built by leased convict labor, primarily African American, kept separate | Documented founding asset was a slave-worked plantation estate | Documented, live Woodland Cemetery - 604 possible unmarked graves (Oct 2020), 667 per later GPR reporting; preservation plan approved; memorialization unfinished | CHUNK2: Morrill component (unscored in chunk 1): Clemson is South Carolina's Morrill beneficiary - state scrip covered 180,000 acres expected, 179,821 located (parcels recorded jointly as 'Clemson University/South Carolina State University'); principal raised $130,500; U.S. paid $5,597.97; 65 cessions (Land-Grab Universities database). Woodland Cemetery update: the GPR total stands at 667 unmarked graves (Clemson News, Feb. 5, 2021); trustees adopted non-disturbance / preservation-plan principles Feb. 2, 2022 and an updated interment policy Oct. 2022 (Clemson News). | Documented Call My Name project; 2016 markers; Legacy Council; Honors College renamed 2020; $3.4M Mellon Black Heritage Trail grant; no apology or fund | CHUNK2: The Woodland Cemetery site reopened in Jan. 2024 after the Pathways Project (pathways, lighting, security, new Press Road gate; Clemson Woodland Cemetery newsletter, Jan. 2024); memorialisation proceeds via a $3.445M Mellon Black Heritage Trail grant (Clemson News, Feb. 10, 2023) and Community Engagement Council guidance, with name-recovery and descendant work continuing (honoured Apr. 2026, Clemson News, Apr. 28, 2026). No Clemson-documented final memorial design, construction, or dedication date was found - memorialisation remains ongoing and unfinished. | Yes | Fort Hill brochure and Clemson News, Clemson University; Black Cemetery Network — Notes: 604 vs. 667 are successive survey totals as stated, not a contradiction to average |
| Wake Forest UniversityNC · 1834 | Documented (original campus only) opened Feb 3, 1834 on Calvin Jones plantation, Wake County (615 acres per museum = plantation total, not purchase size); moved to Winston-Salem 1956 | Documented enslaved people helped create and build the university (2020 presidential apology) | Documented 1860 auction of 14 enslaved people for $10,718 added to endowment; 1836 Blount estate donation included enslaved people | Not documented | Documented Slavery, Race and Memory Project 2019; presidential apology Feb 20, 2020; Wingate Hall renamed May 7, 1860 Hall 2021; annual Commemoration of the Enslaved | Yes | Wake Forest News, news.wfu.edu; JBHE 2019/2020 — Notes: Sale date May 7, 1860 per WFU |
| Furman UniversitySC · 1826 | Not documented Not documented for campus site; Cherrydale (1,200-acre plantation house, 40 enslaved in 1860) moved onto campus 1999 | Documented Seeking Abraham finds enslaved and freed men helped build the early university | Documented founders/donors enslavers; gifts totaling $6.5M in today's value (per report); no institutional sale found | Not documented | Documented Seeking Abraham report 2018 (2nd ed. 2019); 2019 trustee actions - Furman Hall rename, Vaughn statue, Abraham Sims Plaza | Yes | Seeking Abraham, Furman University (2018/2019); Inside Higher Ed 2019 — Notes: First president James C. Furman documented as an enslaver and defender of slavery |
| University of the South (Sewanee)TN · 1857 | Not documented Not documented; Domain from Sewanee Mining Company grant (5,000 acres, Reported figure) | Not documented Not documented (university operated only after Civil War; not upgraded from wealth finding) | Documented designed to promote the South's slaveholding civilization; major early donors were large plantation owners (Roberson Project via JBHE); Maunsel White donor identification Reported | Reported GPR located 148 lost graves in historic Black St. Mark's graveyard; markers planned; no legal claim | Documented Roberson Project 2017; Board of Regents statement Sep 8, 2020 acknowledging entanglement with slavery and white supremacy | Yes | Roberson Project, University of the South; JBHE 2020 — Notes: Naming each founding bishop individually requires primary verification before publication |
| University of AlabamaAL · 1820 | Not documented Not documented (no plantation named for Tuscaloosa site in sources read) | Documented enslaved people made bricks and built early buildings incl. President's Mansion; UA owned and hired enslaved people | Documented UA purchased an enslaved man, Ben, in 1828, and owned/hired enslaved people; institutional sale not documented | Documented (burial ground) enslaved Jack Rudolph and William 'Boysey' Brown buried on campus; other enslaved burials under parking lot/garage unmarked | Documented Faculty Senate apology Apr 20, 2004 (senate, not governing board); grave markers announced 2004; History of Enslaved People at UA database | Yes | Associated Press 2004; UA News Apr 15, 2004; Smarthistory (Slave Burial Ground, UA) — Notes: Distinguish Faculty Senate apology from a board-issued apology |
| University of Mississippi (Ole Miss)MS · 1844 | Not documented | Documented enslaved labor cleared land, made bricks, built Lyceum, Croft Chapel, Barnard Observatory, Hilgard Cut | Documented enslaved people hired from local enslavers incl. Jacob Thompson and Robert Sheegog, payments to enslavers; sale not documented | Documented Confederate monument relocation dispute; moved July 14, 2020 to on-campus Confederate cemetery | Documented Slavery Research Group (working group est. 2013); CACHC plaques 2016-2018; Vardaman Hall renamed; no apology or fund | Yes | UM Slavery and the University Working Group Report (2015); context.olemiss.edu — Notes: Strongest documentation is category B |
| University of GeorgiaGA · 1785 | Not documented Not documented as a named plantation (campus from original 633-acre state grant) | Documented hired enslaved labor for construction and service; trustees' minutes cite at least 39 purchases of slave labour (SGA resolution); direct ownership not found | Documented payments for hired enslaved labor; sale/endowment not documented | Documented Baldwin Hall (Nov 2015) - 105 gravesites, 63 containing remains, mostly African ancestry; reinterred Oconee Hill Cemetery Mar 2017 over descendant-community objection; remains remain there | CHUNK2: Morrill component (unscored in chunk 1): UGA is Georgia's Morrill land-grant (designated 1872) - state scrip covered 269,920 acres expected, 269,651 located (2,939 parcels); principal raised $242,202.17; U.S. paid $6,786.55; 70 cessions (Land-Grab Universities database). Baldwin Hall update: no post-2019 change to the disposition is documented - the remains remain at Oconee Hill Cemetery (2017), the Baldwin Hall memorial was dedicated Nov. 16, 2018; post-2019 developments are research-led (History of Slavery at UGA Project; 'Tell the Whole Story' community event with Linda Davis on the planning team, May 21, 2022; On These Grounds digital resource launched Aug. 22, 2022). No UGA-published post-2019 DNA identification of descendants, apology, or new memorial was found. | Documented Baldwin Hall memorial 2018; joined USS after Nov 2019 grant; no formal apology found | Yes | Flagpole (Baldwin Hall coverage); UGA Provost's Office (USS); NPS Jackson Street Cemetery nomination — Notes: Descendant criticism led notably by Linda Davis of Athens |
| Emory UniversityGA · 1836 | Documented both campuses on Muscogee (Creek) land dispossessed by First Treaty of Indian Springs (1821); Atlanta Paden plantation parcel Reported | Documented Oxford campus originally constructed by enslaved people (Few Hall, Phi Gamma Hall; 'Kitty's Cottage') | Documented regularly hired enslaved labor, paying enslavers; no direct ownership; Candler benefactor tie Reported | Documented descendant engagement over segregated Oxford City Cemetery (created 1839, segregated until 1963); no heirs' lawsuit | Documented trustees' statement of regret Jan 13, 2011 (regret, not apology); Descendants Endowment; Twin Memorials | Yes | Emory Libraries, In the Wake of Slavery and Dispossession; Twin Memorials final report; Inside Higher Ed 2011 — Notes: Joined USS Feb 2021 |
| Vanderbilt UniversityTN · 1873 | Reported later expansion parcel was part of the Elliston family's Burlington Plantation | Not documented Not documented (opened 1875) | Not documented directly; Reported first chancellor Landon C. Garland enslaved about 60 people; founding gift documented as shipping/railroad wealth | Documented UDC Confederate Memorial Hall gift dispute; Vanderbilt paid $1.2M in 2016 to remove 'Confederate' | Documented, limited joined USS 2021; no Vanderbilt-specific report, apology, or fund found | Yes | Vanderbilt Hustler; Inside Higher Ed (UDC case); Star News Network (USS) — Notes: Thinnest file in chunk 1; ties run through people and names, not campus labor |
| Louisiana State UniversityLA · 1860 | Documented present Baton Rouge campus on three former plantations - Arlington, Nestle Down, Gartness | Not documented Not documented for the campus (built 1920s); plantation-era labor documented on predecessor plantations (64 enslaved on Arlington c.1852) | Documented founded in part through sale of Indigenous lands (LSU USS announcement); Morrill A&M component; founder Graham's Tyrone Plantation fortune Reported | Documented (burial ground) Student Health Center built atop cemetery for enslaved plantation workers; no memorial decision documented | CHUNK2: Morrill figures per the Land-Grab Universities database: Louisiana scrip 209,920 acres expected, 209,552 located; principal raised $182,630.40; U.S. paid $5,328.94; 70 cessions. | Documented, incomplete joined USS 2023; USS noted LSU lacks a comprehensive study | Yes | Slavery in Baton Rouge project, slaverybr.org; LSU Reveille (USS announcement) — Notes: Do not transfer plantation-era facts into a claim enslaved people built the 1920s campus |
| University of Texas at AustinTX · 1883 | Not documented | Not documented Not documented (founded 1883) | Documented Permanent University Fund from 2.1M acres of state trust land relinquished by Kiowa and Comanche (Mescalero Apache uncompensated, per Hechinger/Grist); regent-benefactor George Littlefield was an enslaver | Documented Indigenous-land reckoning; Eyes of Texas dispute 2020-21; no tribal lawsuit against UT Austin documented | Documented Eyes of Texas History Committee report Mar 9, 2021 (song retained); Confederate statues removed 2017 | Not confirmed | Hechinger Report / Grist, 'Misplaced trust'; Eyes of Texas History Committee report (2021) — Notes: Texas's Morrill beneficiary was Texas A&M, NOT UT Austin |
| Rice UniversityTX · 1912 | Not documented | Not documented Not documented (opened 1912) | Documented William Marsh Rice was an enslaver; cotton-factorage fortune incl. mortgages collateralized by enslaved people funded the institute; '15 enslaved people' count Reported | Documented Founder's Memorial statue dispute; Board voted Jan 2022 to relocate statue within the quad | Documented Task Force on Slavery, Segregation and Racial Injustice, final report Oct 6, 2023; no apology or fund | Yes | Task Force Final Report, Rice University (2023); Rice News; UVA USS (63rd member) — Notes: Charter restricted institute to white students until 1960s litigation |
| Cornell UniversityNY · 1865 | Not documented Not documented as plantation; Ithaca campus on Cayuga (Gayogohono) land, per Cornell land acknowledgment | Not documented | Not documented Not documented for slavery (Indigenous-land endowment benefit recorded under D) | Documented (Morrill land-grab) NY scrip nearly 990,000 acres; project states nearly $6M raised via 63 treaties/seizures; Cornell faculty narrowed direct benefit to seven treaty surrenders | CHUNK2: Acreage reconciled against the Land-Grab Universities database (HCN-Digital-Projects/landgrabu-data, downloaded Oct. 2026): the variants are different quantities, not a contradiction - 990,000 acres is the nominal statutory entitlement; the database's 'expected' total is 987,680 acres (per Andrews 1918; its source note records 14 scrip pieces lost in the mail, per Halliday's history); and 977,909 acres is what the project actually located, verified by summing 6,716 parcels in Parcels.csv (= 977,908.69 acres). The chunk-1 figure of 989,920 acres in 6,187 pieces of scrip is a Cornell-citing secondary figure at the entitlement layer. Principal per database: $5,739,657.12 (Andrews' $688,576.12 scrip proceeds plus $5,051,081 speculation net profits by 1935, per Gates); U.S. paid $41,165.51 for the Indigenous title. | Documented Cayuga land acknowledgment; 2020 leadership commitments; CUID Project assessment 2022 | CHUNK2: No Cornell-documented land-back, land transfer or Morrill restitution through 2026. Cornell-hosted CUID research (Parmenter, Aug. 29, 2024) documents a retained 50% mineral interest on 155,340 Wisconsin acres including the Blue Hills Pipestone Quarry sacred to the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe; a Lac Courte Oreilles appeal for its return (Mar. 25, 2024) and Student Assembly Resolution 73 recommending transfer remain unacted-on in Cornell's record; Indigenous student leaders again rated the 2020 commitments unfulfilled (Cornell Daily Sun, Oct. 29, 2024). Documented distinct act: repatriation of three Oneida ancestors with a presidential apology, Feb. 21, 2023 (Cornell Chronicle) - NAGPRA repatriation, not land restitution. | Not documented | Lee & Ahtone, Land-Grab Universities, High Country News (2020); Cornell Chronicle, Oct 2020 — Notes: Acreage variants 989,920 vs. 977,909 kept unreconciled pending project database | CHUNK2: 989,920 vs. 977,909 acreage variants reconciled in the D cell (entitlement-layer vs. located-parcel quantities). |
| Pennsylvania State UniversityPA · 1855 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented Not documented for slavery | Documented (Morrill land-grab) 780,000-acre grant (1867); 50 cessions, 112+ tribes; about $38,000 paid for Indigenous title; more than $439,000 raised | CHUNK2: The database's located-parcel total is 776,514 acres (against the 780,000-acre grant figure above); principal per database $439,186.80; U.S. paid $38,088.64; 50 cessions (Land-Grab Universities database). | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented | Lee & Ahtone, High Country News (2020); University of Cambridge summary; Penn State Libraries |
| Ohio State UniversityOH · 1870 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented Not documented for slavery | Documented (Morrill land-grab) 614,325 acres (HCN via Inside Higher Ed), from more than 100 tribes; variants 630,000 acres / $340,818 endowment (FNDI) | Documented 'Stepping Out & Stepping Up' project (Dec 2020), incl. tribal-nation interviews and restitution advocacy | Not documented | Lee & Ahtone, High Country News (2020); Inside Higher Ed Sep 2025; OSU Carmen Collection — Notes: Variant acreage figures kept separate, not merged |
| University of Wisconsin-MadisonWI · 1848 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented Not documented for slavery | Documented (Morrill land-grab) 235,530 acres via 1837/1842 Chippewa and 1831/1836/1848 Menominee treaties; principal figure not retrieved | CHUNK2: Principal now supplied from the Land-Grab Universities database: $303,594.61 raised by 1914; the database's located-parcel total is 235,690 acres (235,690.29 summed from 557 parcels) - the 235,530 figure in the original cell is UW-Madison's own reporting of the project; both kept attributed, not merged. U.S. paid $12,449 for the Indigenous title; parcel-level tribal nations: Chippewa (Ojibwe) and Menomini (Parcels.csv). | Documented Our Shared Future (2019); Ho-Chunk flag raised 2021; full-cost program for Wisconsin Native students, Dec 2023 | Not documented | Lee & Ahtone, High Country News (2020); UW-Madison statements via WisBusiness (2023) — Notes: Principal figure lives in project database; not estimated |
| University of CaliforniaCA · 1868 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented Not documented for slavery | Documented (Morrill land-grab) 150,000-acre grant located in-state on Miwok, Yokuts, Gabrielino, Maidu, Pomo and other lands; fund income up to a third of UC operating expenses in late 19th c.; $730,860 principal Reported | CHUNK2: Principal per the Land-Grab Universities database: $732,233.14 (the $730,860 figure above remains as originally graded, Reported from secondary scholarship; the database figure is the project's own accounting); 150,525 acres located; U.S. paid $0.00 for the Indigenous title (per database); 34 cessions. | Documented 2020 land-grab symposium; UC Native American Opportunity Plan, Apr 18, 2022 | Not documented | Lee & Ahtone, High Country News (2020); Reavis & Wallace, California Law Review online — Notes: System-level entry (UC) |
| University of ArizonaAZ · 1885 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented Not documented for slavery | Documented (Morrill land-grab) 150,000 acres, formerly home to Pima, Yuman, Tohono O'odham, Navajo, Apache; nearly all seized without payment (per project) | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented | Lee & Ahtone, High Country News (2020) — Notes: Parcel example: Western Apache land seized by congressional act Oct 1, 1886, $0 paid |
| Texas A&M UniversityTX · 1876 (chartered 1871) | Not documented Not documented - no source read identifies the campus tract as a former plantation; Texas A&M's own history says Brazos County citizens donated 2,416 acres in 1871 and describes the site as wild prairie (Texas A&M Stories) | Not documented Not documented - chartered 1871, opened Oct. 4, 1876, after emancipation; no source read documents enslaved or convict labor building or operating the campus | Not documented Not documented for slavery - no source read documents A&M selling enslaved people or receiving slave-trade/enslaver gifts (Morrill and Permanent University Fund Indigenous-land benefit is recorded under D) | Documented (Morrill land-grab) Texas's Morrill scrip covered 180,000 acres; the Land-Grab Universities database locates 180,277 acres (2,055 parcels) and records the scrip sold in 1871 for $174,000, invested in 7% gold frontier-defense bonds, with $35,000 of interest added to principal over nine years; U.S. paid $4,177.42 for the Indigenous title; 70 cessions across 16 states (Apache, Arapaho, Chippewa, Omaha and others per the project summary). Separately Documented: the Permanent University Fund derives from 2.1 million acres of state trust land (allocations 1876/1883) relinquished by Kiowa and Comanche at about 2 cents per acre, Mescalero Apache uncompensated (Hechinger Report/Grist); the A&M System receives one-third of Available University Fund distributions. A 2021 Student Senate land-acknowledgement resolution passed 26-20 but was advisory only; no heirs' claim, burial-ground conflict or tribal litigation against A&M documented | Documented (race/representation, not a slavery report) 2020-21 diversity commissions and a Regents plan of nearly $25 million including $1 million for a task force on A&M history and iconography; Sul Ross statue retained (vandalised June 10, 2020, cleaned and back on display June 24, 2020; officials said Jan. 2021 it would stay; AG Opinion KP-0325); statue of Sen. Matthew Gaines, himself formerly enslaved, unveiled Nov. 19, 2021 after the Matthew Gaines Society raised $350,000. No official slavery report, apology, reparations fund or institutional land acknowledgement documented | No - not in the USS membership list as of Dec. 2025 read on the UVA USS page | Texas A&M Catalog, History and Development; Texas A&M Stories (land-grant heritage; Gaines statue); Univ. of Cambridge summary of Land-Grab Universities; Land-Grab Universities database (Universities.csv, Parcels.csv); Hechinger Report/Grist, Misplaced trust; Texas AG Opinion KP-0325; The Battalion 2020-2021 — Notes: Corrects the chunk-1 UT Austin note's open item: Texas A&M full entry now on file. Sul Ross statue was never removed; no 2024 restoration ruling was found - the lead conflated the 2020 vandalism/cleaning with a removal |
| Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyMA · 1861 | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented Not documented for slavery | Documented (Morrill land-grab) Massachusetts' 360,000-acre scrip grant was split between the University of Massachusetts (two-thirds) and MIT (one-third); MIT's adjusted share per the Land-Grab Universities database is 121,014.56 acres and $77,974.84 in principal (state total $236,287.40; land sold 1864-1867); the U.S. paid $4,520.16 for MIT's share of the Indigenous title; 38 cessions | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not documented | Land-Grab Universities database (HCN-Digital-Projects/landgrabu-data: Universities.csv, Parcels.csv); Lee & Ahtone, High Country News (2020) — Notes: Parcels are recorded in the database under the joint beneficiary name 'University of Massachusetts/Massachusetts Institute of Technology' (2,410 parcels; 366,711 acres located) |
| University of FloridaFL · 1853 | Not documented Not documented in this pass | Not documented Not documented in this pass - UF slavery-history research exists (flagged in chunk 1) but was not read for scoring here | Not documented Not documented in this pass | Documented (Morrill land-grab) Florida's scrip covered 89,920 acres expected and 90,262 acres located (997 parcels); the scrip was sold in a block to G. F. Lewis for $80,000 in 1873 and invested in Florida state bonds; the U.S. paid $1,816.30 for the Indigenous title; 41 cessions across 9 states (incl. Cheyenne/Arapaho, Kansas, Comanche/Kiowa and Pawnee lands, per Parcels.csv) | Not documented Not documented in sources read this pass | Not documented | Land-Grab Universities database (Universities.csv, Parcels.csv); Lee & Ahtone, High Country News (2020) — Notes: Scored for category D only in chunk 2; A/B/C await a read of UF's own slavery-history research (chunk 3 candidate). The project database lists the Morrill benefit as assigned 1870 with the university opening in Gainesville form in 1884 |
| South Dakota State UniversitySD · 1881 | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented Not documented for slavery | Documented (Morrill land-grab) South Dakota's in-state grant covered 160,000 acres (159,832 acres located in the project's parcels); principal raised $128,804.87; the U.S. paid $4,440.13; 8 cessions (Land-Grab Universities database) | Documented the Wokini Initiative redirects income from retained Morrill lands (nearly $636,000 in FY2019) to Indigenous student scholarships and programs - the Land-Grab Universities project's own model institutional response (per Lee & Ahtone) | Not documented | Lee & Ahtone, Land-Grab Universities, High Country News (2020); Land-Grab Universities database (Universities.csv) — Notes: Included as the land-grab project's model response case (chunk-1 sector note lead) |
| Sweet Briar CollegeVA · 1901 | Documented Indiana Fletcher Williams's parents Elijah and Marie Fletcher operated a plantation called Sweetbrier from the 1830s to 1858, part of which became the campus; Indiana deeded the plantation land in 1900 to found the college (college history; Rainville 2008) | Not documented Not documented for the campus (the college opened in 1906, so enslaved people did not build the college buildings; the college states a predominantly Black labor force built its buildings and grounds after abolition, 1906-1960). Enslaved labor is Documented on the predecessor plantation: the Fletcher family enslaved more than 140 individuals whose labor contributed to the success of the plantation (college history) | Documented the founding gift was Indiana Fletcher Williams's estate - more than $1 million and more than 8,000 acres including the Sweet Briar Plantation at her death in 1900 (college catalog). The slavery-derived share of that estate is not quantified in sources read | Not documented Not documented - no descendant/heirs' claim, burial-ground conflict or reparations demand found in sources read; descendant engagement documented as cooperative (reunions, rededication), not adversarial; the college history page acknowledges the land as part of the ancestral homeland of the Monacan Nation | Documented 2003 memorial plaque and rededication of the Plantation Burial Ground with descendants; Lynn Rainville's campus archaeology and Invisible Founders; descendant reunion and reconsecration 2008. No apology or reparations fund documented. A new 2020s memorial effort was NOT verified - the memorial on record is 2003/2008 | Yes (historical) - a Virginia state report lists Sweet Briar in the 2014 Virginia Colleges and Universities Studying Slavery group that became USS in 2015; current membership not separately verified on the Dec. 2025 USS list as retrieved - FLAGGED | Sweet Briar College History page (sbc.edu); Sweet Briar 2021-22 Catalog; Rainville (2008), Social Memory and Plantation Burial Grounds; VA Enslaved Ancestors Scholarship Program annual report 2022 — Notes: Burial census: Sweet Briar Plantation Burial Ground on campus - at least 60 burial sites per college-linked summaries; Rainville's academic estimate 54 possible burials; GPR (Univ. of Tennessee ARL, 400 MHz) plus gradiometer survey; results published in Rainville 2008, partly inconclusive; memorial plaque 2003 |
| College of CharlestonSC · 1770 | Documented for college-owned satellite land only the college owns Dixie Plantation, an 881-acre former rice plantation on the Stono River bequeathed by naturalist John Henry Dick (d. 1995), now a research/conservation site. Main downtown campus plantation siting Not documented; its core was a Revolutionary-era barracks site | Documented the college's Discovering Our Past research found manual and skilled enslaved laborers worked on the original construction of Randolph Hall under contractor and enslaver William Bell, four identified by name - Tom, Mudrey, Cuffy and Peggy - and on later renovations; 13 researched campus locations were mostly directly linked to enslaved labor | Documented first president Bishop Robert Smith was a plantation owner who owned more than 200 people at his death in 1801; with that slave-based income he advanced the college funds to repair the barracks, and enslaved people he owned worked on college projects for which he billed the institution (college research). Reported additionally (JBHE, secondary): President Jasper Adams purchased a woman named Nancy and her daughter in 1829 | Documented (burial-ground conflict, live) Coming Street Commons (106 Coming St., acquired for a c.1,000-bed dorm) encompasses a former municipal potter's field dating to the late 18th century (college acknowledges); opposition documented from the Protect and Respect the Bodies Coalition, Preservation Society of Charleston and Historic Charleston Foundation; the city Board of Architectural Review deferred the plans pending archaeological review. A historians' estimate of up to 12,000 burials is Reported (WCIV) only - not a college figure. No descendant legal claim documented | Documented Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston; Discovering Our Past website/app (2020, 13 campus sites); Committee on Commemoration and Landscapes markers unveiled 2024; documentary project on enslaved builders of Randolph Hall. No apology or reparations fund documented | Yes - joined 2018 (CofC Today) | CofC Today, Discovering Our Past launch (2020), USS joining (2018), Coming Street Commons meetings (2025); Coming Street Commons Community Engagement Council minutes, May 14, 2026; WCIV/ABC News 4; Architectural Record (Dixie Plantation); JBHE (2019, secondary) — Notes: Burial census: Coming Street potter's field - grave count NOT established (Reported estimate up to 12,000 unverified); GPR Feb. 13-14, 2026 (Scott Harris, 199 swaths): inconclusive, no grave shafts noted; report NOT published as of May 2026 minutes - release requires SHPO approval; distinct from the 2013 Gaillard Auditorium find (city site, 36 individuals, reburied 2019) - do not merge |
| Tulane UniversityLA · 1834 | Documented Tulane's own Subcommittee on Recontextualization report (Feb. 5, 2021) states part of the uptown campus constituted the 18th-century sugar plantation of Etienne de Bore, and the downtown campus sits on the site of a former HBCU which itself sat on the plantation of New Orleans founder Bienville | Not documented Not documented - no documentation found in sources read that enslaved people built or operated Tulane's campuses (Gibson Hall dates to 1894); the Tulane History Project is researching the university's racial history including slavery, with no findings on enslaved campus labor published in sources read | Reported - secondary/student source only (The Tab, 2016) claims Paul Tulane's father built a fortune on slave labor in Haiti and that Paul Tulane became New Orleans's largest donor to the Confederacy. His 1884 endowment gift renaming the University of Louisiana is documented generally, but a slavery derivation of his fortune was NOT established in any official or scholarly source read. Do not upgrade | Not documented Not documented - no descendant/heirs' claim, burial-ground conflict or reparations demand found; the 2021 report acknowledges the site's Indigenous name, Bulbancha, and Indigenous displacement, but records no land claim; no campus burial ground identified | Documented Building Naming Task Force / Subcommittee on Recontextualization report (2021); removal of the Victory Bell in 2020 after it was identified as a plantation bell used to direct enslaved people's movements (cast 1825; on campus from 1960); Tulane History Project announced 2021 (executive director Marcia Walker-McWilliams); USS membership 2023. No apology, memorial or reparations fund documented | Yes - joined May 2023 (USS; Tulane News); on the USS list as of Dec. 2025 | Tulane Subcommittee on Recontextualization report (2021); Tulane History Project / Tulane News; USS, Tulane Joins USS (May 16, 2023); Inside Higher Ed and JBHE (Victory Bell, 2020); The Tab (2016, for the Reported C claim only) — Notes: No burial ground on a Tulane campus was identified in any source read |
| University of RichmondVA · 1830 | Documented for over 150 years from 1702 the land now forming the campus was a series of plantations including Westham; between the mid-1840s and 1865 more than 200 children and adults were enslaved on the property (VPM 2025, citing university research). Correction to early leads: in sources read Westham was Benjamin Green's plantation (Harlan 1935; Driskill research), not the Ryland family's | Documented with the university's own qualification historian Ed Ayers, for the university's commission work, states UR itself did not own enslaved people and was not built by enslaved people - a 'deep but oblique' connection. Documented core: first president Robert Ryland owned enslaved people (at least a dozen; university research in 2020 put it at over two dozen), employed people he enslaved at Richmond College, and supervised the leasing of enslaved people to work for the university (downtown era). Enslaved labor on the Westham campus land pre-dates the university | Reported renaming-record sources show enslaver benefactors/trustees (e.g., tobacconist and trustee James Thomas Jr., who enslaved people and is described as having kept the school afloat financially after the Civil War; the T.C. Williams family's $25,000 law-school endowment nucleus, 1890), and the university benefited operationally from leased enslaved labor under Ryland. A slavery-derived amount for any gift/endowment was NOT directly documented, so this stays Reported | Documented (burial-ground conflict) records show UR knew in 1912 of at least 20 graves in the Westham Burying Ground, yet paved over them in road construction - VPM, citing UR, says in violation of state law; graves were disturbed again in 1947 (two remains reburied nearby) and in mid-1950s steam-tunnel work (a series of graves, reburied at an unknown location). Organized descendant engagement followed via the Enslaved Burying Ground Descendants Council. The 2021-22 naming fight is also documented; the lead's claim of a Virginia law blocking renamings was NOT verified - the board's stated 2021 ground was its educational mission, and it reversed course in 2022 | Documented Race and Racism at UR Project; USS membership; Lee and Driskill 2019 report 'Knowledge of This Cannot Be Hidden'; Naming Principles adopted Mar. 26, 2022 and six buildings de-named (Ryland Hall, Freeman/Mitchell-Freeman Hall, Jeter, Thomas, Puryear, Brunet); Burying Ground Memorial designed with descendant input and dedicated Apr. 23, 2025. No reparations fund or formal apology documented | Yes - USS welcome announcement (consortium then at 34 schools) | VPM/WHRO (Apr. 28, 2025); The Collegian (2019, 2021, 2023, 2025); USS welcome page for UR; Inside Higher Ed (2021, 2022); Richmond BizSense (2025) — Notes: Burial census: Westham Burying Ground, on campus (now 112 UR Drive) - total graves UNKNOWN; at least 20 documented to trustees in 1912; GPR (NAEVA Geophysics) attempts to locate exact burials were INCONCLUSIVE per the Memorialization Committee's final report as covered by The Collegian (2023); no standalone published GPR report found; memorial COMPLETE, dedicated Apr. 23, 2025, with the Descendants Council (families incl. Bradford, Carter, Leecost, Lewis, Pryor, Warden) |
| Hollins UniversityVA · 1842 | Not documented Not documented - sources read site the campus at Botetourt Springs, a resort operating 1820-1841 whose property/buildings the seminary acquired; no plantation name for the campus site is established. 'Oldfields' in Hollins sources is the name of a Black community (the Oldfields Community), NOT verified as a plantation - do not print 'Oldfields plantation' | Documented Hollins Working Group finds enslaved people were held in President Charles Lewis Cocke's household and others on campus and leased to the school by nearby slaveholders; Cocke hired (rented) the whole Bolden family from David Read c.1857; the Working Group says East (1856) and Main (1861) were 'highly likely' built with enslaved labor - that construction claim is likelihood, not a direct record. No records show the school itself owned enslaved people | Documented George Plater Tayloe, Board of Trustees president and regular donor for five decades, drew wealth from Cloverdale Ironworks, Roanoke River lands, Alabama cotton plantations and the people enslaved there - more than 200 enslaved people per the Working Group renaming page. No sale of enslaved people by the institution documented | Documented (burial ground; no land claim found) Green Ridge Baptist Church cemetery on Plantation Road next to campus - 113 persons buried per a survey by Tom Klatka (Virginia DHR) cited by the Working Group; a second Working Group post says 'over 120 graves' - counts differ by source and are kept separate. No descendant/heirs' land claim documented | Documented Working Group on Slavery and Its Contemporary Legacies (begun 2016); Hollins hosted the USS spring meeting in 2018; 2021 Board of Trustees voted unanimously to remove the 'Tayloe' name from the gymnasium; renewable scholarship up to full tuition for descendants of enslaved members of the Hollins community (Working Group page, updated Dec. 8, 2024). An institutional apology was under discussion in May 2020; no issued apology found | Yes - USS welcome announcement; Hollins hosted the USS spring meeting 2018 | Hollins Working Group renaming report (Aug. 2021) and Renaming, News and Scholarship pages; Hollins History & Mission page; USS (Virginia) announcement — Notes: Burial census: Green Ridge - 113 (Klatka survey as cited) vs 'over 120' (Working Group post), discrepancy retained; survey type NOT stated as GPR in sources read; no published survey report read; the church formed c.1867, so this is a post-emancipation Black church cemetery containing formerly enslaved people (incl. Clem Bolden, c.1846-1929), not an established antebellum enslaved cemetery; restoration in progress in May 2020 (name plaque with about 20 names then identified); completed memorial not verified |
| University of Maryland, College ParkMD · 1856 | Documented UMD Libraries exhibition states approximately 400 acres of the northern lot of Riversdale Plantation, known as the Rossburg Farm, were sold by Charles Benedict Calvert for more than $20,000 to site the Maryland Agricultural College (a secondary history gives a variant 420 acres / $21,000 - UMD figure used). The Xfinity Center site was a separate plantation established c.1820 by John Eversfield (1856 Project report as reported). Name note: the plantation is Riversdale; 'Rossborough' attaches to the inn, not the plantation | Documented the 1856 Project report (as reported by JBHE and The Banner) finds more than 500 enslaved Black people lived on land that became the campus; enslaved people lived and worked on Calvert's Riversdale plantation, part of which is now campus; the Rossborough Inn employed enslaved staff per the report summary. Direct enslaved construction of the college's own 1859 buildings is not established in sources read | Documented the 1856 Project's co-chair describes the university's initial funding as largely from the slave economy (as reported); early investors/trustees were enslavers - William N. Mercer was largest stockholder with 300 shares (UMD exhibition); trustee William Tilghman Goldsborough enslaved 55 known people (1856 report as reported); Calvert was bequeathed approximately 120 enslaved people in 1838 and held 65 in the 1850 census / 52 in 1860 (year-specific counts, kept separate). No sale of enslaved people by the institution documented | Documented (Morrill/Indigenous land) the Land-Grab Universities database records Maryland's grant as 209,920 acres expected and 202,971 acres located, with $112,504 in principal raised and the U.S. paying $12,554.35 for the Indigenous title across 29 cessions (figures also reported by The Diamondback). UMD has issued a Piscataway land acknowledgment for the campus area. No descendant/heirs' claim or burial-ground conflict over the campus documented | Documented the 1856 Project (est. 2020; funded with $900,000 from President Darryll Pines), whose 52-page report 'Reconstructing the Truth' was presented Feb. 2024; UMD hosts the 2026 USS conference. No apology or reparations fund documented | Yes - member since 2020 (USS welcome announcement; Maryland Today) | UMD Libraries, Rising Up / Plantation to Scholars exhibition; 1856 Project report coverage (JBHE; The Banner; Maryland Today, Feb. 2024); Land-Grab Universities database (Universities.csv); The Diamondback (Land-Grab webinar report); USS (Virginia) UMD welcome post — Notes: No campus enslaved burial ground identified in sources read |
| University of MissouriMO · 1839 | Not documented Not documented - sources read do not establish that the Columbia campus sits on a named former plantation; a secondary account says founder James S. Rollins donated land for the original campus, a plantation origin for that parcel not established. Indigenous cession of the campus land is treated under D | Documented for operation / Reported for construction MU Archives finding-aid summaries document the hire of Moses and then Tony (spelled Toney in later MU reporting), enslaved men owned by Mrs. S.E. Lenoir, as janitors in 1853, with a treasurer's promise note to pay for Tony's services. For construction: MU's History Working Group (2018) was charged to honor 'laborers and enslaved people who built Mizzou' and the 2017 Faculty Council resolution refers to enslaved labor contributing to the university's establishment, but no source read documents enslaved construction of Academic Hall specifically; in 2008 officials could not confirm slave labor built the university. The Academic Hall lead is NOT verified as stated | Reported - secondary journalism only founder James S. Rollins enslaved 34 people (The Maneater) / 'as many as 36' (EduLedger) - counts differ; his father held about 75; Rollins raised $114,000 from neighbors and donated land to site the university (EduLedger); Andscape states much of the seed money came from local slave owners. No MU institutional report quantifying this was read. No sale of enslaved people by the institution documented | Documented (Indigenous cession / memorial dispute) the Jefferson statue task force's recommended sign text stated the campus land was ceded by Indigenous inhabitants in treaties of 1808 (Fort Clark), 1824 and 1825 (Osage); in June 2021 the Board of Curators rejected both the contextualizing sign and the proposed MU Legacy Walk (6-2; a reflection fountain excepted). Documented (Morrill land-grab, per the Land-Grab Universities database): Missouri's grant was in-state land - 277,067 acres expected, 270,613 located; $363,441.19 raised by 1914; 44,287 acres still unsold in 1914 and disposal incomplete as of 2019 ('not all sold yet' in the database); the U.S. paid $665.32; 2 cessions | Documented MU History Working Group established fall 2018 by Chancellor Cartwright (deactivated Jan. 23, 2025); Faculty Council passed a memorial resolution in 2017; no memorial installation verified. A descendant-funded exception: Clay Westfall Mering endowed the $25,000 James S. Rollins Slavery Atonement Fund for Black Studies research (c.2007) - a private descendant gift, not an institutional reparations fund. No institutional apology documented | Not documented - no evidence of USS membership found in sources searched/read | MU History Working Group page (committees.missouri.edu); MU Archives finding-aid excerpts in 'Did Slaves Help Build Mizzou?' open letter; Columbia Missourian/Tribune reporting on the Jefferson task force and June 2021 Curators votes; The Maneater; EduLedger; Andscape; Land-Grab Universities database (Universities.csv) — Notes: No campus enslaved burial ground identified in sources read. The Oct. 2026 Lincoln University lawsuit uses MU as the funding comparator - a Lincoln claim, not a claim against MU's campus land |
| Washington University in St. LouisMO · 1853 | Documented WashU's own USS announcement (2021) states the Danforth Campus including the South 40 'is built on former farmland where enslaved people were exploited'; the project's 2024 tour account specifies the Danforth Campus and South 40 occupy land where people were enslaved by the Forsyth and Skinker families. Sources read do not name this farmland as a single plantation. The original 1853 campus was downtown, a different site | Not documented Not documented - WashU's own 2024 institutional account states no evidence has been found that enslaved people built the university or labored on campus, and notes the first buildings on the current Danforth and Medical campuses were built in the early 1900s, after emancipation. This is the institution's stated finding, not a disproof of ties elsewhere | Documented the WashU & Slavery Project finds many early benefactors and officials were enslavers; nearly half (31 of 66) of chancellors/directors/trustees whose lives overlapped enslavement had ties to slavery; founder/trustee Wayman Crow was an enslaver (Crow Hall is named for him). Reported (student research in Student Life): 7 of 17 founding members were enslavers, including John O'Fallon, a key land benefactor who enslaved 39 people in 1850. Co-founder William Greenleaf Eliot bought enslaved people intending to free them but required them to work until he recouped his expenses (WashU Source 2024). No sale of enslaved people by the institution documented | Not documented Not documented - no descendant/heirs' claim, burial-ground conflict, Indigenous-land claim specific to WashU, or reparations demand against WashU was established in sources read. The project's work at off-campus sites (e.g., Greenwood Cemetery, Bissell House) is partnership interpretation, not a WashU campus burial dispute | Documented WashU & Slavery Project (begun fall 2020 / spring 2021, based in CRE2); 'Enslavement and Its Wake' self-guided campus tour; St. Louis Integrated Database of Enslavement (SLIDE); joined SlaveVoyages. No building renaming was verified - Crow Hall still carried the enslaver's name in the 2024 tour account; the lead's suggested 2021 removal was NOT found. No apology or reparations fund documented | Yes - joined spring 2021 (WashU Source USS announcement) | WashU & Slavery Project site (slavery.washu.edu); WashU Source (Apr. 2021 USS announcement; Aug. 2024 'Reconciling with our past'); CRE2 project page; Student Life (Nov. 2021) — Notes: No campus enslaved burial ground identified in sources read |
The 1890 Land-Grant HBCUs — Treated Separately
The 1890 land-grant HBCUs are not scored as beneficiaries of slavery. They were founded for Black students under segregation, and where a land dispute exists, the institution is the injured party: chronic state underfunding of the second Morrill Act land-grants. All 16 recipients of the September 18, 2023 letters from Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack are on file below, each with its reported 1987–2020 underfunding gap. The 16 reported gaps sum to roughly $12.9 billion on the rounded figures as reported; the Associated Press reported the total as $12.6 billion. The totals are kept attributed, not merged. Two 1890 land-grants received no letter, because the federal analysis found their states had funded them equitably: Delaware State and Central State (Ohio).
| University | A — Plantation land | B — Enslaved labor | C — Financial benefit | D — Land dispute | E — Response | USS member | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hampton UniversityVA · 1868 | Documented established 1868 on former Little Scotland Plantation (per Cultural Landscape Foundation); AMA purchased the 165-acre farm (NRHP nomination) | CHUNK2: The Little Scotland identification is now confirmed by a stronger source than TCLF: the National Register of Historic Places nomination for Hampton Institute (Virginia DHR file 114-0006, 1969) states the institute is 'Located on what was formerly known as Little Scotland Plantation near the mouth of the Hampton River' and calls the Mansion House 'the original plantation residence for Little Scotland' (brief quotation). Caveat: the nomination text was read via the DHR-hosted document's index after a direct PDF fetch timed out - a page-image pull is an open verification step. No Hampton University Museum publication naming Little Scotland was found in this pass. Mansion House date varies by source (1828 / c.1820 / 1820s) - kept as 1820s. | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded to educate freedpeople | Not applicable Not applicable - see Notes | Documented (institution defending its land) 2016 refusal of VDOT I-64 widening taking; eminent-domain counsel retained | Documented Emancipation Oak on campus (1861 teaching site; 1863 Emancipation Proclamation reading) | Yes | Virginia DHR, Hampton Institute National Register nomination; Cultural Landscape Foundation; Congressional Record (2018) | CHUNK2: adds National Register nomination, Hampton Institute (Virginia DHR 114-0006); Library Company of Philadelphia catalog record (1912 Mansion House photograph, description rev. 2022); SAH Archipedia, Hampton University — Notes: Founded by AMA/Freedmen's Bureau leadership for freedpeople. 'Little England' is a different site; do not use. Private; not an 1890 land-grant |
| Prairie View A&M UniversityTX · 1876 | Documented established on Alta Vista Plantation of Col. Jared Ellison Kirby (139 enslaved people by 1860, per PVAMU guide); state purchased 1,400-acre site 1876 (NPS) | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for the formerly enslaved and their descendants | Not applicable Not applicable - see Notes | Documented (institution wronged) $1.1B state underfunding gap 1987-2020 (2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter) | Documented Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery at campus edge believed to hold 2,000+ graves of enslaved and formerly enslaved people (Reported within institutional source) | Not documented | PVAMU Library Guides (Alta Vista Plantation); NPS NRHP nomination; JBHE Jun 2022 — Notes: Texas's first state-supported HBCU; creating bill sponsored by Black Rep. William H. Holland |
| Alcorn State UniversityMS · 1871 | Not documented as a plantation founded 1871 on former Oakland College campus purchased by the state for $40,000; Oakland was planter-founded and planter-endowed (Reported) | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - designated for the education of Black youth | Not applicable Not applicable - see Notes | Documented (institution wronged) $257M state underfunding gap 1987-2020 (2023 federal letter) | Documented campus preserves Oakland's 1830s buildings incl. Oakland Memorial Chapel (National Historic Landmark) | Not documented | Mississippi Encyclopedia; NPS Oakland Memorial Chapel nomination — Notes: First president Hiram Rhoades Revels. Do NOT list as a former plantation site on current evidence |
| Florida A&M UniversityFL · 1887 | Documented relocated 1891 to former Highwood Plantation of territorial Gov. William Pope DuVal; DuVal mansion repurposed as Old Main; 375-acre figure Reported | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students under segregated 1885 FL constitution | Not applicable Not applicable - see Notes | Documented (institution wronged) $1.97B state underfunding gap 1987-2020 (2023 federal letter); student class-action suit filed Sep 2022 | CHUNK2: The student class-action suit (filed Sept. 2022) was dismissed by a federal judge in January 2024, then revived by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on June 9, 2026, which held the dismissal premature and made no finding that Florida discriminated; the case returned to district court (JBHE, June 19, 2026; Bloomberg Law). | Documented 1890 land-grant status from 1891; campus preserves plantation-era site history via SAH Archipedia documentation | Not documented | SAH Archipedia; The Florida Preservationist (Fall 2024); NPR Sep 2023 — Notes: Second-largest 2023-letter funding gap |
| Tennessee State UniversityTN · 1912 | Not documented Not documented - no plantation siting in sources read; the City of Nashville provided 35 acres for the campus plus 95 acres of farm land (National Register nomination, TSU Historic District) | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $2.1 billion 1987-2020 vs the University of Tennessee-Knoxville per the Sept. 18, 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter - the largest gap of the 16 states (IHE gives the range top as $2.14 billion) | Documented the state disputes the figure - Tennessee's 2021 Office of Legislative Budget Analysis calculated $150M-$544M in unmatched land-grant funds since 1957 (a different measure); a $250M infrastructure appropriation followed; TSU's board was vacated by law in March 2024; a $96M state agreement under a five-year financial turnaround plan followed in 2025 | Not documented | States Newsroom (Sept. 2023); Associated Press (2023); Inside Higher Ed (2023); NPR (2023); The Tennessean (2026); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.) — Notes: Nashville's only public land-grant university; comparator is the 1862 institution UT-Knoxville |
| North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State UniversityNC · 1891 | Not documented Not documented - no plantation siting in sources read; established 1891 as an annex of Shaw University in Raleigh, relocated to Greensboro in 1893 on 14 acres donated by local citizens (National Register district history) | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $2 billion 1987-2020 vs North Carolina State University per the 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter; EdNC reports 'a little under $2.1 billion'; an exact-dollar letter figure was not documented in sources read | Not documented Not documented - North Carolina was not among the nine states the letters credited with steps to address underinvestment (EdNC); no state response documented in sources read | Not documented | States Newsroom (2023); EdNC / N.C. Tribune (Sept. 19, 2023); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.) — Notes: Do not merge with the Forbes 2022 figure of $2.758 billion - a different, inflation-adjusted methodology. North Carolina Central University is not an 1890 land-grant and received no letter |
| Southern University and A&M CollegeLA · 1880 | Documented the Baton Rouge campus sits on Scotland Plantation - on March 14, 1914, 135.63 acres of the Scotland Plantation, including most of the plantation buildings, were sold to Southern University for $5,764.27, beginning the school's presence at Scotlandville/Scott's Bluff (Southern University Library guide citing conveyance records). The c.1840 former plantation building on site is now the university Archives Building (National Register-listed). Note: Scotland Plantation - distinct from Hampton's Little Scotland | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $1.1 billion 1987-2020 vs Louisiana State University per the 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter | Documented Louisiana's administration commissioner responded in 2023 that the state was making historic higher-ed investments, that the basis of the $1.1B figure was unclear to the state, and that the governor directed a meeting with the secretaries (Inside Higher Ed) | Not documented | States Newsroom (2023); Inside Higher Ed (2023); Southern University Library LibGuide (Scotland Plantation / Scott's Bluff history); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.) — Notes: Founded in New Orleans 1880; relocated 1914 to Scotlandville |
| Alabama A&M UniversityAL · 1875 | Documented The 1891 purchase of the Henry P. Turner place, 182 acres on the Meridianville Pike (Huntsville Gazette, Apr. 4, 1891; NRHP nomination via Morrison), was the Green Bottom Inn tract: an antebellum inn, racetrack, horse market and slave market, with slave cabins, a gin house and cultivated farm acreage, opened in 1815 by John Connally on land bought at the 1809 federal land sales. Definitional note: the documented antebellum complex is a slave-worked and slave-traded inn-and-farm, not a named cotton plantation; the grade rests on that stated basis. The parcel’s successive holders held people in documented numbers: Connally’s 1830 census household (Ranges 3 and 4, Madison County) held 33 enslaved people; Turner held 45 in the 1860 slave schedule (North Western Division, Madison County); and Judge David C. Humphreys — to whom William Hooper Councill, his mother Mary Jane and his brother Cicero were sold in 1857 — held 57 in one 1860 return and one more person in a second. The Encyclopedia of Alabama and the university’s own LibGuide place that 1857 sale on the inn’s auction block; the account’s earliest located source is a 1925 Birmingham News retrospective — the two lifetime sketches of Councill (Simmons, 1887; Culp, 1902) describe the sale at Richmond and name neither Green Bottom nor Humphreys, and that limit is stated wherever the sale is claimed. One tension stands open and is not smoothed over: the 1875 Map of Madison County prints Turner’s land a mile south of Meridianville, in the northern halves of Secs. 9–11, T2S R1W, while the campus corridor on the pike prints Mastin — Turner either acquired the campus parcel between 1875 and the 1891 purchase, or the “Turner place” tradition compresses the two-to-three miles between his mapped land and the campus. The 1891 deed — price, grantor form, and legal description all still unpulled — is the test. | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students. The campus was built from 1891 onward, its earliest buildings by documented student labor; the enslaved labor documented on this parcel is the antebellum inn-and-farm operation, not campus construction. | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $527.3 million 1987-2020 vs Auburn University per the 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter. Separately: no enslaved burial ground is documented on the campus in sources read — the Founder’s Grave Site (ca. 1909, Councill and his wife) and the University Cemetery (ca. 1919) are cemeteries of the university era. | Documented (at the institutional level) the 2001 NRHP nomination for the campus historic district documents the remodeled slave cabin (the Virginia McCormick Model Home, a Green Bottom-era cabin); the State Black Archives, Research Center & Museum is housed on campus; and the university archivist’s published LibGuides tell the Green Bottom Inn history, including the account of Councill’s 1857 sale on its auction block. No formal slavery report and no USS membership documented. The state-response grade is a separate question and stands as before: no state response to the 2023 letter documented in sources read. | Not documented | States Newsroom (2023); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.); Huntsville Gazette, Apr. 4, 1891; NRHP nomination, Alabama A&M University Historic District (Ref. 01001407); 1830 U.S. census and 1860 slave schedules, Madison County (read Oct. 18, 2026); 1875 Map of Madison County, Alabama (Library of Congress); Counter-Archive project records (AAMU Research Database; Huntsville universities memos, Oct. 18, 2026) — Notes: HBCU — SEPARATE TREATMENT. Founded by William Hooper Councill. Tuskegee University (private) was not a letter recipient - the Alabama letter concerned Alabama A&M only. Councill’s birth year is carried as a conflict (July 12, 1848 in the NRHP’s sources; July 12, 1849 in the Encyclopedia of Alabama). |
| Oakwood UniversityAL · 1896 | Documented The campus core sits on Sec. 29, T3S R1W: the Peter Blow plantation (NW¼, patented Oct. 5, 1819 to Peter Blow & John Cunningham, BLM accession CV-0109-462) beside the Job Key holding (SW¼). On Feb. 3, 1821 Blow borrowed $2,000 on the land and mortgaged the quarter section together with eight named enslaved people as collateral (Madison County Deed Book G, pp. 163–164): Luke (~22), Will (~21), Sam (~20), Dred (~16), Isaac (~13), Phillis (~17), Hannah (~45), Solomon (~60). The deed states no relationships among them. The General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists took possession on Jan. 23, 1896, finding a manor house and nine former slave cabins on the farm. Who sold it to the church is not named in any source read: the 1821–1895 chain is unresolved, and the surviving accounts conflict — one institutional history’s chain runs the land to a James A. Beasley in 1869, while the same author’s deed-side note runs it Lightfoot → Irwin (by deed, 1869) → Michael J. O’Shaughnessy (by deed, 1888), the last personal owner before the church. The 1875 Map of Madison County supports the deed-side chain for that year: Sec. 29 prints W.C. Irwin (including the south part of the Blow NW¼), W.H. Lednum (including the north part of the Key SW¼) and J.D. Vandeventer — no Beasley in the section. The identification of the farm as the “Beasley estate” of Dr. James A. Beasley is carried as a graded lead, not a finding: his 1850 and 1860 slave schedules return no Madison County entry under either spelling (Beasley / “Bearley,” every results page read), so his place in the chain rests on a deed claim alone, and his probate file is the test. Acreage (360 / 380 / 375) and price ($6,700 / $8,000) conflict across the institutional sources and are unresolved; only the 1896 deed settles them. | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students. Oakwood opened in 1896 and its campus was built by its students and staff; the mansion and nine slave cabins it inherited were plantation structures — a fact about the parcel, not about campus construction. | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not documented no descendant or heirs’ claim, reparations demand, or burial-ground conflict in sources read. The Key–Blow Slave Cemetery — 40 to 50 unmarked graves in the SW¼ of Sec. 29, on the campus (University of Alabama Alabama Cemetery Survey, entry 436) — is a documented burial ground without a documented dispute; it is carried here as presence, not conflict, so the fact is not lost. No GPR or archaeological survey of the ground was found in sources read. | Documented (institutional acknowledgment; no formal report) — Oakwood’s official history page names the slave-plantation origin and the Dred Scott connection; the 1996 AHA marker stands on campus; campus plaques mark the slave-cabin locations and the cemetery; and the university’s digital scholars gallery documents the Old Mansion, the plantation owner’s residence found standing at the purchase. No official slavery report and no USS membership documented in sources read. | Not documented | Encyclopedia of Alabama, “Oakwood University”; Oakwood University, Mission & History; Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, “Oakwood University”; UA Alabama Cemetery Survey, Madison County, entry 436; Madison County Deed Book G, pp. 163–164; BLM GLO accession CV-0109-462; 1875 Map of Madison County, Alabama (Library of Congress); Warren, Oakwood! A Vision Splendid Continues (2010); Counter-Archive project records (Oakwood Research Database) — Notes: HBCU — SEPARATE TREATMENT. Private Seventh-day Adventist HBCU, founded 1896 as Oakwood Industrial School; not an 1890 land-grant; first scored Oct. 18, 2026. The deed’s Sam (~20) and Dred (~16) are carried as the deed lists them — two boys; the later tradition that they were one man, Dred Scott, is not merged into the record. |
| University of Arkansas at Pine BluffAR · 1873 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $330.9 million 1987-2020 vs the University of Arkansas per the 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter | Not documented Not documented - no state response documented in sources read | Not documented | States Newsroom (2023); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.) |
| Fort Valley State UniversityGA · 1895 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $603 million 1987-2020 vs the University of Georgia per the 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter | Not documented Not documented - no state response documented in sources read | Not documented | States Newsroom (2023); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.) — Notes: Georgia's only 1890 land-grant institution |
| Kentucky State UniversityKY · 1886 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $172 million 1987-2020 vs the University of Kentucky per the 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter - the smallest gap of the 16 states | Not documented Not documented - no state response documented in sources read | Not documented | States Newsroom / Kentucky Lantern (2023); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.) |
| University of Maryland Eastern ShoreMD · 1886 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $321 million ('more than $321 million,' AP) 1987-2020 vs the University of Maryland, College Park per the 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter | Documented Maryland settled a 15-year federal HBCU underfunding lawsuit in 2021 for $577 million covering all four Maryland HBCUs including UMES; Gov. Moore's office responded in 2023 citing a 20 percent HBCU funding increase since he took office. The 2021 settlement predates the 2023 letter and was system-wide - not a payment of the $321M UMES land-grant gap | Not documented | States Newsroom (2023); Associated Press (2023); Inside Higher Ed (2023); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.) |
| Lincoln UniversityMO · 1866 | Not documented Not documented - founded in 1866 by Black Union soldiers who pooled their wages (Associated Press) | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $361 million 1987-2020 vs the University of Missouri per the 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter; the exact federal figure is $361,569,760 (JBHE, Oct. 2026, citing the analysis as pleaded in the Oct. 2026 lawsuit) | Documented on Oct. 7, 2026, seven current and former Lincoln students sued Missouri (W.D. Mo.) seeking a $548.7 million remediation fund ($223,780,941 nominal shortfall plus $324,972,497 prejudgment interest, per the complaint as reported); the governor declined comment on pending litigation; the state noted a 63 percent appropriation increase plus $38M capital under Gov. Parson, and full state match from 2022 | Not documented | States Newsroom (2023); Inside Higher Ed (Oct. 7, 2026); JBHE (Oct. 13, 2026); Associated Press (Oct. 2026); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.) |
| Langston UniversityOK · 1897 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $418.9 million 1987-2020 vs Oklahoma State University per the 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter | Not documented Not documented - no state response documented in sources read | Not documented | States Newsroom (2023); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.) — Notes: Oklahoma's only HBCU |
| South Carolina State UniversitySC · 1896 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $470 million 1987-2020 vs Clemson University per the 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter | Documented in part South Carolina was among the nine states the letters credited with steps to address historic underinvestment (EdNC); no further response documented in sources read | Not documented | States Newsroom (2023); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.) — Notes: SC State is also the later co-beneficiary of South Carolina's Morrill endowment (parcels recorded jointly as 'Clemson University/South Carolina State University' in the Land-Grab Universities database) |
| Virginia State UniversityVA · 1882 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $277.5 million 1987-2020 vs Virginia Tech per the 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter | Documented in part Virginia was among the nine states the letters credited with steps to address historic underinvestment (EdNC); no further response documented in sources read | Not documented | States Newsroom (2023); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.) |
| West Virginia State UniversityWV · 1891 | Not documented Not documented in sources read | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Not applicable Not applicable as scored for beneficiary institutions - founded for Black students | Documented (institution wronged) underfunded $852.6 million 1987-2020 vs West Virginia University per the 2023 Cardona-Vilsack letter | Not documented Not documented - no state response documented in sources read; West Virginia was one of six states the letters flagged for not providing one-to-one match in recent years | Not documented | States Newsroom (2023); H. Res. 1424 (118th Cong.) |
Method & Sources
The five questions
A. Campus sited on former plantation land.
B. Enslaved labor documented in building or operating the campus.
C. Financial benefit from slavery — the institution sold enslaved people; endowment or gifts came from enslavers or slave-trade wealth; slave-sale proceeds.
D. Land dispute — descendant and heirs’ claims; burial-ground conflicts; Indigenous land under the Morrill Act land-grab findings; reparations demands.
E. Institutional response — official report, Universities Studying Slavery membership, memorial, apology, reparations or benefit fund.
The grades
Documented — established in a source read. Reported — carried by a secondary or advocacy source, not independently verified from a primary record. Not documented — not established in the sources read; that is a statement about the record, not proof of absence. Grades are never upgraded: when a later source changes a cell, the new finding is appended to the original wording in the research file in the form “ | CHUNK2: …” rather than written over it. That annotation, where it appears in the tables above, is the audit trail.
Principal sources
The Universities Studying Slavery consortium (hosted by the University of Virginia); Craig Steven Wilder, Ebony and Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities (2013); Robert Lee & Tristan Ahtone, Land-Grab Universities (High Country News, 2020) and the project’s downloadable database, queried directly for per-school Morrill acreage and principal; the institutional reports — Brown University, Slavery and Justice (2006); Harvard / Radcliffe Institute, Harvard and the Legacy of Slavery (2022); the University of Virginia President’s Commission on Slavery and the University; and Georgetown’s GU272 work and Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation (2016); and the Cardona–Vilsack letters of September 18, 2023, for the 1890 land-grant funding gaps.
Research is ongoing; chunk 3 candidates and open items are tracked in the project files. Corrections are recorded beside the original findings, in the open.