What to Do After You Confront Your History: HASA’s Polishing of Georgetown

Photo via Reuters

Lainey Lyle: Georgetown’s New Student Orientation (NSO) is known for piles of lecturers, the chance to meet all 1,873 of one’s fellow classmates, and being imbued with details about Georgetown’s extensive and complicated past. But it wasn’t like this until recently–and may not be for long. Despite being fundamental to the history of the university and serving as some of the first exposure students have to campus, Hoyas Advocating for Slavery Accountability (HASA) is a surprisingly young organization fighting to ensure their voices remain heard on campus. 

In 2016, a NYT article shoved the Georgetown Jesuits’ 1838 sale of 272 enslaved peoples (commonly referred to as the GU272) into the spotlight. This sparked the creation of the Georgetown Memory Project which contacts descendants of the GU272 and helps connect them to their ancestors, providing support and extensive resources along the way. This article fanned growing demands among the student body at the time for the University to reckon with Georgetown's history–a task it was seemingly daunted by. 

Student protests culminated in the creation of the GU272 Advocacy Team–a group of descendants of the GU272, like Shepard Thomas and Mélisande Short-Colomb, and student advocates, like Hannah Michael (C ‘21). The Advocacy Team, with the support of GUSA and the student body, drafted the now famous 2019 referendum calling for the addition of a $27.20 tuition fee to finance reparations to the GU272 descendants. Despite not serving as official GUSA members, the group got the referendum pushed through and later passed by the student body. 

Then, the University intervened. President John DeGioia announced that Georgetown itself, through the aid of outside donations, would finance the reconciliation fund outlined by the 2019 referendum instead of relying on student tuition dollars.

But then, like many budding communities, the promises of the fund were overtaken by COVID. And it is here, in a COVID-era GUSA meeting, that HASA was born. Genevieve Grenier (MSB ‘24) remembers it well. It was at this Fall 2021 meeting–the first one back in-person–that she met Julia Thomas, the sister of Shepard Thomas, who had fiercely fought to establish the reconciliation fund. Thomas revealed Georgetown had not made good on their promise to fill the reconciliation fund. In fact, they hadn’t even started it. 

In a flash, the GU272 Advocacy Team was reformed–this time determined to earn immediate action and attention. And oh, how they did. In December of 2021 the Advocacy Team put together a presentation on reparative justice—more specifically, all the ways Georgetown had failed to fulfill the 2019 referendum. And after a year of virtual classes, Georgetown students seemed eager to engage with the GU272 Advocacy Team.

According to Grenier, so was the University. They eventually emailed the GU272 Team to talk about their presentation, the fund, and steps forward. Just a few months later, Georgetown announced the finalized version of the reconciliation fund which has continued to annually sponsor $400,000 worth of community-based projects for descendants of the GU272.

Grenier mentioned this victory with the University was a major turning point for the group. “I ended up being the chairperson of the reconciliation fund,” she explained, and her connection to the administration allowed the GU272 to shift their previously one-time goal of the reconciliation fund into something more long term. 

Rather than working against the administration, HASA and Grenier leveraged her position with Georgetown to enact more holistic and long term descendant-based advocacy–including supporting the Reconciliation Fund’s sponsorship of a family reunion and hosting a libation ceremony with honorary music. 

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing. HASA has continually struggled to keep up with the enormity of responsibilities they have undertaken as liaisons between descendant communities and the University, as well as advocates for descendant students on campus and working within the administration while being, in Grenier’s terms, a “pretty small and intimate group.” Or somewhat outnumbered in comparison to the immenseness of Georgetown’s history. 

Kessley Janvier (CAS ‘25) echoed these concerns, particularly about what happens to HASA when she graduates. Janvier’s time with HASA has been particularly unique as during her time the organization has shifted to more “reparative justice work and less protesting.” Which, she admits, “sounds almost antithetical to what organizing is,” on a campus as politically active as Georgetown. But she argues that this has been better for the descendant community as a whole.

Janvier characterized HASA similarly to Grenier: dedicated to putting descendant’s voices first. Specifically, she spoke at length about HASA’s growing fight to highlight that “reparations itself is an intersectional issue,” which “touches every aspect of the university, including every department.”

So why is she concerned? “I feel that because we have what seems to be visible student activism on this issue, people take it for granted,” Janvier claimed. While Grenier spoke to the heart of the Georgetown community–a group that rallied multiple times for descendants, confronted administration, and saw their goals realized–Janvier seems to find herself apprehensive of the movement’s longevity.

Though Georgetown students often find themselves in a give-and-take with the administration, Janvier and Grenier both pointed out that after years of student organizing, student apathy can become a problem. They echoed a growing concern of a sort of “let-it-go” mentality, where the first signs of resistance or push back provoke frustration and outrage rather than communication. 

Grenier pushed back on this mentality, insisting “the nature of this work is that it’s too important, for me personally, to focus on anything except keeping the ball rolling.” These frustrations are not incomprehensible, but they are, perhaps, indicative of a low-level cynicism festering on campus. 

What exactly has changed? Grenier and Thomas were fighting for the official installment of the reconciliation fund just a few years ago, yet less than a year after Grenier’s graduation, HASA is raising serious flags about the viability of their continual operational success–something incredibly dangerous for the Georgetown community.

It would be easy to write off all the achievements HASA and their partners’ advocacy has resulted in thus far as proof that Georgetown has, in fact, confronted its history. After all, their achievements in a few short years are enormous: the continued success of the reconciliation fund (which helped fund The Poppaw Queen documentary featuring Short-Colomb) numerous community-based projects for descendants, work with the Mt. Zion community, advocacy for descendants on campus, keynote presentations at NSO, and even the new Georgetown core class. 

These victories are staggering for a few short years of activism and central to today’s campus culture–but they aren’t enough. Not because they are less important than HASA’s future goals, but because HASA understands, as Grenier pointed out, that “there’s simply an importance in keeping the stories alive.”

While Georgetown has made incredibly admirable strides in addressing and righting past wrongs, the point of long-term accountability and restorative justice is that it is just that:long term. HASA has laid the groundwork for what could reshape decades of pedagogical debate and conversations on campus and is a uniquely Georgetown reflection on advocacy in the modern age. 

Georgetown is growing and changing and struggling with its own identity–HASA is only a small reflection of that. Janvier’s final advice seems to float not only from HASA to the greater Georgetown community, but as a senior’s soft goodbye to her loving, complicated and ever growing home: “I can see how we’ve shaped it. I can see how the generation prior to us shaped it, and I think this kind of hustle is flexible and it’s open and it only moves forward based on the commitment of students and the inclusion of everyone’s voices.”

So let’s keep their voices alive and move forward together.

Lainey Lyle is a sophomore in the School of Foreign Service studying International Politics. Her column “Activate That” focuses on the unique culture, structure, and interactions of student advocacy groups on Georgetown’s campus.