The United States used nearly 11 million acres of Indigenous territory taken from almost 250 tribes, bands, and communities through more than 160 violence-backed land cessions to launch the land-grant university system in 1862. New York’s only land-grant institution, Cornell University, was chartered in 1865.
In 2020, the groundbreaking "Land-Grab Universities" investigation identified and detailed how expropriated land formed the foundation of land-grant colleges across America. Two years after the story sent shockwaves through the U.S. education system, questions remain about the debts that universities owe to Indigenous communities as well as the limits of reparative justice when access to current information remains a major obstacle to further research and reporting on the roots of inequalities in academia.
Join us for this discussion featuring Grist Editor-at-Large Tristan Ahtone and Dr. Robert Lee, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Cambridge, to examine the troubled legacy of land-grant universities and their impact on tribal nations.
