BOGUES

What made you decide to appoint a Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice? There were a lot of things happening at the time, such as reparations arguments and related debates on campus. I tend to think that people who make very important decisions ultimately do so for internal reasons, not only as a response to external factors. What led you to your decision?

SIMMONS

Actually, I was responding to a pretty simple question. One of the things that has animated me throughout my long career in higher education is not to veer too far from certain principles. To me, one of the most enduring elements of establishing sanity [laughs] and being able to be consistent across decades is being transparent and truthful. I never saw any alternative to that in my career. And so a simple question needed to be met with a straightforward answer. That was my assumption. 

When I started at Brown, I heard this question: What was the University’s relationship to the transatlantic slave trade? And so I dutifully began to look into it to see if I could get some answers. I found no answers. The official histories of the University were silent on this question. When I asked people in public relations to get a statement out about Brown’s relationship to the slave trade, they told me there was no such relationship. Given the fact that there was both confusion and obvious discomfort with that question, I thought the only way to address it was to come at it very directly and to find the truth. The way to do that, it seemed, was to use the University’s best resources — scholarship and research. And so I reached out to people who had the capacity to research this question and to deliver the answer in a straightforward and unexpurgated way. That’s really what animated me. There was a very simple question that needed to be answered, and we needed to answer it in the way that universities typically answer such questions.

BOGUES

What is interesting, though, is that instead of appointing a historian or two, you set up an institutional process. Why such a deeply democratic process? What motivated you to go in that direction?

SIMMONS

First of all, there was the clear prospect that the answer to the question of Brown’s relationship to the transatlantic slave trade would create some discomfort and division within the University community, and by that I mean among alumni, among supporters, among students, among faculty, among staff. I really thought it important, therefore, to have a representative group of people present to participate in and observe this question up close, to be able to allow the University to ratify the outcome and to be able to attest that the process was valid. This approach was necessary to make sure that whatever the findings, they could be upheld as valid and truthful. 

We had a wonderful group of people who were empowered to ask questions, to express doubt, to change the shape and direction of the investigation when they thought it was useful to do so, and so on. Keep in mind, we talk a lot about democratic processes — we extol them, in fact — but we use them less often than we actually should. So I thought it would be wonderful to establish a process that would demonstrate the following: We were unafraid to do this work as a university because we believed profoundly in the task of universities to investigate, to disclose the truth, to be transparent. We believed in those values, and, therefore, we were unafraid to have a group of people robustly pursue the truth and to give us the result. 

I often thought during this process that the most valuable work we were doing, frankly, was modeling that process, claiming it as being robust enough for us to consider any question no matter how uncomfortable it was. In a real sense, I thought the country ought to be doing the same thing, using the same modality to explore the past, and to come to terms with it. I knew that this was very much going to be a process of coming to terms with the University’s history, and if we could model that for the country, would that not be a wonderful thing to do? 

Second, I also thought, very selfishly, that I might be compromised in this process because, as unfair as it was, here I was, an African American president, calling for this to be done. I knew that the project would draw immediate criticism only because I was African American. I knew that some critics would say I had some kind of grudge. Thus, it was important that the research profile be so strong and have such integrity because I knew that I would be challenged, as an African American, on my right to call for this process. I often say that had I been Larry Summers or another of the Ivy League presidents doing this, my appointment of the Slavery and Justice Committee never would have been raised as an issue. But I am realistic, and I knew that, because of racism, some would raise the issue precisely because, in their view, I was not entitled to do the same things that other presidents were entitled to do.

BOGUES

One of the things that I remember and always make reference to is something you said to the Committee halfway through the process. We couldn’t at that time agree on the outcome of the Report and were planning to write two versions: a majority report and a minority report. When a group of us informed you of our plan over dinner, you turned to all of us at the table and said, “I can’t tell you exactly what to do, but if you do that you have failed.” At that moment, we knew we had to go back to the drawing board, reassemble, and try to work through our differences. Why did you say that to us?

SIMMONS

I said it because this is such a profoundly necessary thing for the country to do, and it is so important for us to come to terms with a kind of commonality of perspective. I’ve never believed that it was impossible to get to a shared perspective around these thorny issues. Keep in mind that I grew up in deep segregation in the South, and the opinions between Blacks and whites varied greatly, to put it mildly. But I’ve always felt since I was a child that the stakes are so high in our country to be able to agree on fundamentals. If we stop working toward that goal, we might as well agree to dissolution, because we cannot coexist in this enterprise if we do not have the strength to hammer through the differences of opinion and come to some agreement on how we go forward. 

And so I thought at that moment, “Goodness, if such a committee cannot do that, then what possible hope is there for the University as a whole to resolve such questions — for the country as a whole to resolve such questions?” I believed that that resolution had to start with the Committee. In a group that had been working together for so long, that knew about each other’s motives, that trusted each other’s honesty, why could one not reach agreement? I wanted to insist that we at least try. 

The other aspect of it, frankly, was that I didn’t ever have a sense during that process that the Report would be as important as it has turned out to be. But I thought that it had the potential of being important, and I wanted to make sure that, when released, the Report had a certain integrity. I often say that as we do our work in universities, we ought to own up to the problems we face, we ought not to deny that there are disagreements — profound disagreements, as it were — but at the same time demonstrate how we’re able to hammer out those differences and reach a conclusion that allows us to go forward together. I thought that would be a different and better model for the University.

BOGUES

You talked about opposition. Where did your most serious opposition come from?

SIMMONS

It came from people who were not so much associated with Brown University, but who were flung across the country, wanting to challenge what we were doing as, from their perspectives, somehow corrupt. It was very much the kind of thing that one heard when people began talking about reparations, especially around the question posed by Charles Ogletree and others as to whether or not universities and institutions that had benefited from slavery should have to disgorge the benefits that they had received from slavery. There were people who were enraged at what they saw as a venerable university taking on such an issue. I think our work literally frightened these people into assailing the process as illegitimate because it dared to look into the slavery origins of a university. So we had comments from people like that across the country. We also saw publications that raised questions about whether or not the process might somehow be corrupt, mostly by virtue of the fact that I was African American, and, therefore, must have certain motives in undertaking this project. There were questions, to be sure, from some alumni, but those were pretty muted compared to what most universities have experienced. 

As for the Corporation [of Brown University], they said very little to me about it, frankly. I was still in my early days at the University, and I had struck up a conversation with the Corporation before I was actually named to the presidency at Brown. When they approached me about becoming president, I challenged them about whether or not they understood well enough what I was and who I was. I then challenged them to really seek somebody else if they were not prepared to deal with someone like me who could not do the job other than how I saw it — how I felt it — on the basis of my own experience and knowledge. And I said, if you are not prepared to have me be fully who I am, then you should go someplace else and find another president. They had insisted at the time that they understood who I was, and that they were prepared for me to lead on the basis of who I was. That gave me permission, therefore, to do what I was doing, and so the Corporation did not intrude or say something to the effect of “This is a dangerous thing you are doing, please don’t do it.” I never got that kind of instruction from members of the governing body, the Corporation of Brown University.

BOGUES

As the process unfolded, did you think that you were a pioneer?

SIMMONS

Not at all, not at all.

BOGUES

But this was the most difficult task that you were undertaking.

SIMMONS

I didn’t think of it that way, honestly. This did not seem to me to be the most difficult thing that I was undertaking. I did not think it would be remarkable in my tenure as president of Brown, actually. The reason I didn’t think so is because I was approaching the question in my typical way. Remember, I came to Brown after long years in higher education, where I had done things on the basis of what I thought was the right thing to do. I was simply doing the same thing in this instance: seeking the truth, and doing something that was actually good for the University because the process would put to rest questions that some had posed about the corruption of the University, which had hidden the truth of its connection to slavery. So I thought that I was lifting up the University with the truth. It seemed to me that was a good thing to do, but by no means did I consider it the most important thing that I was doing. 

Early in my tenure, for example, I indicated that Brown would implement a need-blind admissions policy. Oh my goodness, I thought that was far more important in terms of my tenure than anything else that I was contemplating doing. A good deal of the changes that we were making at Brown were policy changes and investments in the University, and, typically, universities tend to think that those are the important things. The work of the Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice was just a study, right? Frankly, I thought it was exactly the kind of thing that any self-respecting university leader would do, much as one would take on any issue of the time and try to wrestle with it and deliver an answer to one’s community.

BOGUES

The Report is now considered pioneering, and has opened up the floodgates at many universities and other kinds of institutions to do this kind of self-study. For universities, in particular, Brown’s undertaking is regarded as the gold standard for this kind of task. I wonder how you reflect on all of this as part of your legacy.

SIMMONS

One is rarely responsible for how, in the end, one is seen, or what of one’s work people most value. It has been a great surprise to me that people have seen this work as perhaps the most important thing that I’ve done in my entire career [laughs]. It does not displease me that this is the case, because I never expected that I would determine how people should see me. And yes, I would note that around the world Brown’s investigation into its relationship to the transatlantic slave trade has been a very defining aspect of my work. 

Let me be immodest and say something about the ways in which this undertaking has affected my present and my past, and probably my future. First, it was all, in the end, so incredibly sane and sensible: A question arose, we did not shrink from the question, we organized ourselves to answer it, and the Committee did a superb job unearthing the truth. Second, the Report was so superbly written, so deftly constructed with a mix of supporting documents and facts, that it could not be denied. Written in a tone that lacked recrimination, it was evidence of the best work that one can do when turning to a question of such serious violation of human rights. So the fact is that the process itself, the Committee, and the Report all combined to do work that probably would have been very hard to equal by any one person, and I unfairly got credit for it when it was really the Committee that delivered the results of the investigation in such an unimpeachable form. 

Brown’s superb handling of the whole undertaking gave permission to a very large number of institutions to do the same. Up until then, nobody would touch the subject; everybody was afraid of the consequences of looking at it. After all, slavery, race, and racism have been the third rail in this country since its founding. Brown gave people reason to believe they could do it also, and that they could carry out such work and survive despite all of the reasons that people said it could never be done. 

What are some of those reasons? Number one, we were told that a university dare not do this because supporters would be angry, they would walk away from the University, they’d never give money to the University again, that it would be disastrous because students wouldn’t come to the University. The scenario that was painted by some was that such activity would be shameful and would be criticized very harshly, and that what we were doing would be to the detriment of any university. 

The fact that we were able to do it at Brown, to do it well, and then to come out on the other side of it as a stronger institution, not a weaker institution, even raising $1.6 billion for our campaign, gave other institutions permission to undertake this work without fear, and that was the real beauty of it. It has been phenomenal to see the number and types of institutions that have finally engaged with the issue of slavery and what it wrought: insurance companies, investment banks, universities outside the country, the United Nations…I don’t know the number, but it has to be in the hundreds. I certainly couldn’t have predicted such an outcome. 

Brown’s work has done good for the country — and for the world, frankly. It’s made African Americans, in particular, feel so much pride in the fact that, finally, people can talk about a part of the African American legacy in this country that went unexamined for so long. I’ve benefited because people wrongly think that I’m the right person to handle any complicated issue involving race and slavery [laughter]. Of course, that’s not the case, but it did allow me to step into some spheres that I never would have been able to step into because people associate me and will always associate me with the excellent Report that the Committee produced.

BOGUES

I’d like to say, though, that we never would have been able to do that work — to do the research, to write the Report — without your courage and conviction throughout the entire process.

SIMMONS

I was merely doing what my experience over the years told me that universities required. I’m one of those old fogies who just believes so passionately in the unique space that we occupy in universities. Because I grew up with lies — lies about the capacity of African Americans, lies about white supremacy, lies about what slavery actually did, and the legacies of slavery in this country — I came to university life because it was the one space that I could see in the country where one could begin to tell the truth. Scholars did research, they wrote books, they told the truth about history. I was just adhering to the values that I thought universities should stand for. 

Now I know that universities don’t always tell the truth, and if they don’t, I’m usually the first one to castigate them for missing the opportunity to do so. I still believe in these values. When I first came to Prairie View, I think they were very shocked by the things that I said because I believe what I believe no matter where I am. Whether I’m at an Ivy League university or I’m at a historically Black university, I believe the same thing, and I say the same thing. We have work to do in a university that is so important to the advancement of society. If we shirk that responsibility, shame on us. If we fail to do what we need to do in turning a mirror to society, shame on us. And I, for one, never want to be associated with doing that sort of thing.

BOGUES

Any final remarks?

SIMMONS

I hope that Brown lives up to the legacy of the Report and its process. I hope ardently that the University embraces and honors the extraordinary work that the Committee did across time, because people so admire that work around the world. One of the real dangers that the University will face if they fail to honor that work is that people will think far less of the University than they should.

BOGUES

Thanks very much, both for your time and the remarkable work you have done as an educator.