Over the past year the Commonwealth of Virginia has undergone a symbolic reckoning with its ties to slavery, as statues in Richmond have been taken down and schools in Stafford have been renamed. Now, under a new bill proposed in the Virginia House, public colleges and universities will be challenged to do the same thing.

On Thursday, House Bill 1980, which is titled the Enslaved Ancestors College Access Scholarship and Memorial Program, proposes to “are required to annually identify and memorialize, to the extent possible, all enslaved individuals who labored on former and current institutionally controlled grounds and property and provide a tangible benefit such as a college scholarship or community-based economic development program for individuals or specific communities with a demonstrated historic connection to slavery that will empower families to be lifted out of the cycle of poverty.”

It directly targets the following five schools: Virginia Commonwealth University, Longwood University, University of Virginia, The College of William & Mary, and the Virginia Military Institute. These schools have a sordid history of supporting and defending slavery. This is similar to what Johns Hopkins University did in 2020 as they publicly stated that its namesake enslaved people.

The bill seeks to go further, calling for economic restitutions for those communities. The Democratic-sponsored bill has passed in the House and now moves to the state Senate. It has been co-sponsored on a local level by Delegates Hala Ayala (51st), Lee Carter (50th), and Joshua Cole (28th).