If scholars and activists have long noticed that discussions about reparations re-emerge during periods of intense racial strife, then perhaps it is not surprising that reparations have again become an increasingly mainstream conversation in the US. Significantly, the university has not been insulated from these discussions, but in fact has become an important site of this struggle. As of now, most critical attention both on the page and in the streets has been pointed at private, elite universities in which the fact of the university’s founding during the antebellum US becomes a flash point for the discussions of the legacy of slavery. However, using my own university teaching context as an example, I show that the discussion of reparations in the context of the American University need not – and indeed, as many scholars and activists argue, should not – be limited to those institutions that were funded from slavery’s profits or were literally built with slave labor. By discussing a course project that looks into my own university’s history, I model one strategy for educators to normalize the discussion of reparations as well as expand its reach to encompass more recent and ongoing injuries to African-American communities.

中文翻译：

---

教大学就是教赔偿：一个班级项目

如果学者和活动人士早就注意到，在激烈的种族冲突期间，关于赔偿的讨论重新出现，那么赔偿在美国再次成为越来越主流的话题也就不足为奇了。值得注意的是，大学并没有与这些讨论隔绝，但实际上已成为这场斗争的重要场所。到目前为止，无论是在页面上还是在街头，最关键的注意力都集中在私立的精英大学，在这些大学中，大学在美国内战前成立的事实成为讨论奴隶制遗产的一个热点。然而，以我自己的大学教学环境为例，我表明在美国大学的背景下讨论赔偿不需要——事实上，正如许多学者和活动家所说，不应该——仅限于那些由奴隶制利润资助的机构，或者是用奴隶劳动建造的机构。通过讨论一个研究我自己大学历史的课程项目，我为教育工作者制定了一种策略，以使关于赔偿的讨论正常化，并扩大其范围以涵盖对非裔美国人社区最近和持续的伤害。