The Task Force's Final Report

Preliminary Report with Recommendations

December 2020

Full Preliminary Report (PDF)

Context

As outlined in the Rider University mission and values and the Inclusive Excellence Plan, Rider is committed to being a leader in inclusive excellence. This commitment includes all aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion, including providing leadership to eliminate systemic oppression. This kind of commitment requires acknowledging our historical contributions to oppression, leveraging that knowledge as education to inform transformative change that promotes full access to individual rights and privileges for all people.

In the process of their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, many institutions of higher education have uncovered historical markers of their past that perpetuated slavery or other pervasive acts of racism and oppression. Rider University is one of those institutions. As an institution, we want to take a proactive stance in researching and understanding this history and leveraging it in educational opportunities as we develop leaders who are “ lifelong independent learners and responsible citizens who embrace diversity, support the common good, and contribute meaningfully to the changing world in which they live and work.”

Background

The Task Force on Rider and the History of Slavery (TFHS) convened in the summer of 2020 and had its first meeting on August 18, 2020. The committee included members from faculty, staff, alumni and current students of the University. The task force committee met several times during the summer and early fall of 2020. The President, Greg Dell’Omo, requested a report by the end of October 2020.

Membership

• Lisa Arnold-Dempsey, Executive Assistant
• Karen Bognar, Associate Director of Advancement Services 
• Bob Congleton, Associate Professor, Librarian 
• Leanna Fenneberg, Vice President for Student Affairs 
• Adam Grybowski, Director of Communications 
• Brooke Hunter, Associate Dean, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (co-chair) 
• Jerome Manning, Rider Student 
• Eugene Marsh, Doctoral Candidate, Veterans Affairs Review Board, and Rider Alumnus 
• Cynthia Martinez, Assistant Professor of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures
• Evelyn McDowell, Chair and Associate Professor of Accounting (co-chair) 
• Pam Pruitt, Executive Director, Center for Diversity and Inclusion 
• Wright Seneres, Princeton Entrepreneurship Council, Rider Alumnus 
• Dana Walcott, Rider Student 

Approach

To accomplish the charge, we implemented a four-step process. First, we met to review the history of slavery in New Jersey and Lawrence Township. We also discussed the known history of slavery relating to the Lawrenceville campus, including what we know about Benjamin Van Cleve and his property. Second, we met to discuss the plan to research how other universities and institutions handled their response to known or newly discovered history related to slavery (Appendix I). We divided the task force into two groups — one researched universities’ reactions and the other investigated museums/historic houses. The third step consisted of two meetings to recommend and finalize our proposed actions. In the final step, we prepared the report.

The scope of our analysis was narrow. We only focused on the Lawrenceville campus. We did not evaluate or review the history of the Princeton campus or the Westminster Choir College history. We did not analyze Rider’s founders' and early leaders’ financial holdings or its prior institutions’ organizers’ actions.

The committee briefly discussed obtaining the views and opinions of various stakeholders by holding listening sessions and convening focus groups. We quickly realized that we needed to educate everyone before gathering their opinions—something we were not prepared to do, given the limited time allotted to the task force. We met with the Black Student Union and a member of Black Men United, two groups representing many students of recent African descent. The task force ultimately concluded the University should, at some point, gather the opinions and views of its major stakeholders.

Established historical facts about Rider University and its connection to slavery

New Jersey’s historical record documents the ruthless cruelty of American chattel slavery and the falsehoods of black inferiority and white superiority. Individuals of African descent, including infants and children, were bought and sold for hundreds of years. They were counted as property on tax lists, wills, and probate inventories. They were stripped of their basic human rights and ability to protect themselves by the laws of the country and by men and women who were focused on building wealth. Enslaved people sought freedom in the courts, staged uprisings and were self-liberated by escaping. English colonists and new Americans created and supported laws to enforce the unnatural ownership of humans based on the freedom status of their mothers and the ability of mankind to create hierarchies of the human species. Out of the struggle to subdue individuals of African descent and some individuals of indigenous heritage, the ideas of white superiority emerged, setting the nation on a continued path of racial subjugation and discrimination for centuries to come.

The Van Cleve House and the surrounding property ties Rider University to this ugly history and our nation’s current realities. Benjamin Van Cleve (1739-1817) was a slaveholder who owned and operated the land as a plantation from ca. 1773-1817. The Van Cleve House was part of the property Rider purchased in 1956 for its new Lawrenceville campus. The University first used the building as a student residence in the early 1960s. In 1969, it was renovated and became the College Admissions office. In 1993, the admissions office moved out and the alumni relations office moved in. It was always called the Van Cleve House by Rider.

What follows is a preliminary summary of what we know about Benjamin Van Cleve and the enslaved people he owned. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, major sources of information like the New Jersey State Archives were closed. Many outside of the historical profession may be surprised by the limits of the archival record. We do not have personal papers for Benjamin Van Cleve, such as letters, diaries, or account books to recover his views about slaveholding or the experiences of those he enslaved. Public records such as tax assessments, census returns, and wills and probate inventories provide a significant source of information but leave many questions unanswered. We are committed to collecting as much information as we can from archival sources and using the scholarly literature to situate the fragmentary evidence into the fullest, most accurate account possible.

Appendix II provides a timeline of Rider’s connection to slavery set in the context of New Jersey history.

Benjamin Van Cleve. Van Cleve was a Revolutionary War officer and New Jersey statesman who forces us to confront the paradox of liberty and slavery in American history. Van Cleve was born in Maidenhead Township, New Jersey (now Lawrence) in 1739. He purchased the property in the early 1770s, where evidence confirms he held enslaved people. Benjamin was not the only member of his family to enslave others. His brother Aaron, also a Maidenhead resident, was also a slaveholder.

Tax records from 1778, 1779, 1786 and 1799 report that Van Cleve owned at least one enslaved male in each of those years. Taxes do not provide a full record of Van Cleve’s slaveholding because assessors only assessed male slaves fit to work between the ages of 16 and 50. Tax assessments do not tell us how Benjamin Van Cleve acquired these enslaved persons or the conditions of their daily life under his mastery. A further reminder of the dehumanization of slavery, their names are unknown.

A runaway slave advertisement published in the New Jersey Gazette provides evidence that Van Cleve also owned at least one enslaved woman named Dinah. As America battled Britain for independence, on December 26, 1778, Dinah risked the perils of escape for her freedom. The ad described Dinah as seen through her master’s eyes, “A Negro WENCH... 28 or 30 years of age, five feet six or seven inches high, black and very lusty.” The last phrase in the 18th century suggested she was strong and healthy. Van Cleve did not want to lose his investment in such a valuable slave and offered a substantial reward of 30 pounds for her capture. In addition to a description, the ad also included information about her previous owners. Van Cleve recently purchased Dinah from Rev. Jacob Van Arsdale of Springfield, New Jersey, located in Essex County about 50 miles away. She formerly lived in Rocky Hill, about 11 miles away near Princeton. The ad suggested she may be heading to a brother residing with Col. Nathaniel Scudder in Freehold, about 30 miles away. Dinah experienced continuous disruption and insecurity due to being sold multiple times and endured the wrenching separation from her family. It is unknown whether she escaped or was forced back into bondage.

Court records reveal that at the time of Van Cleve’s death in 1817, several Black people resided in the Van Cleve household. An unnamed Black woman and boy, and a bound girl named Abigail Coulter whose race we cannot determine yet. Additional research may reveal more about these individuals.

Recommendations

As a task force, we recommend a comprehensive response to the history of slavery connected with Rider University that has been discovered. We promote a genuine and sincere response about our intent to honor the lives of those who were enslaved and their descendants and use this history as a vehicle to educate the campus community about the history of slavery as it relates to ongoing means of oppression to Black people in America. Our response should reinforce our institutional commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion, advancing the goals outlined in the Inclusive Excellence Plan and other strategic University documents.

In summary, the task force made recommendations in five areas: Commitment/Implementation, Building Name, Memorialization, Community Feedback and Education. The recommendations included extending the task force and revising its charge to implementation; creating a budget for proposed actions; concluding buildings should not carry the name of enslavers, memorializing people enslaved on the grounds of the campus with remembrance ceremonies and scholarships, creating focus groups to further specify recommendations from Rider’s immediate communities, and creating educational content about the history of slavery and the Rider’s ties to it while being intentional about providing context to slavery’s impact today.

Commitment/implementation

• To the extent applicable, Rider’s administration should proclaim culpability surrounding its inaction and delays in discovering and acknowledging its connections to the history of slavery.
• Extend the task force to implement actions. Additional members will be recruited as needed.
• Align actions with the Inclusive Excellence Plan.
• Develop a budget and fundraising plan.

Naming

• Change the name of the Van Cleve House so as not to honor an enslaver; however, we should consider acknowledging the complicated history of Benjamin Van Cleve.
• Do not use the renaming of the house for fundraising.
• Develop a framework for considering new revelations about the University’s history and criteria for changing or maintaining the names of buildings.

Memorialization

• Support the adoption of historical markers placed around the campus, including in or near the building currently named Van Cleve House, to memorialize and recognize the enslaved people terrorized and brutalized on the land.
• Create programming related to memorializing the enslaved people who suffered under the evils of colonial and United States slavery, including Dinah (name of an enslaved woman enslaved by Benjamin Van Cleve) that engages student groups and the local community.
• Create a scholarship (e.g., named in honor of Herbert Hubbard, first confirmed African American student at Rider).
• Establish a Student Award for race and social justice activism.

Community Feedback

• Conduct focus groups with campus and local community members to inform planning and implementation.

Education/Research

• Continue archival research on Benjamin Van Cleve and the enslaved people he owned.
• Develop University webpages outlining Rider’s connection to the history of slavery.
• Create an exhibit on the history of slavery in Van Cleve House.
• Establish a lecture series to address the history and legacies of slavery in today’s society.
• Establish a Postdoctoral Fellowship to support research and teaching on racial inequality/systemic racism in the United States and to recruit recent Ph.D. graduates from underrepresented groups into faculty positions.
• Encourage undergraduate research on the history of slavery and its continuing legacies, including systematic racism, through classes and engaged learning.
• Collaborate with Lawrence Township schools on a community project on the history of slavery.
• Perform additional research about the university’s founding and its early board members, administrators, and donors.

Communication Strategy

• Develop an internal and external communication strategy using the Inclusive Excellence Plan as a model.
• Publish articles in News@Rider and Rider magazine to keep the community informed.
• Present to Cabinet and Board of Trustees.

Appendix I: Best practices on institutional responses related to their connection with slavery

To gain a better understanding of how other institutions have addressed the history of slavery. These best practices guided our recommendations.

Colleges/Universities

The subcommittee reviewed how thirteen universities addressed their troubled history of slavery. The following universities were included in our review: Brown University, Georgetown University, Princeton University, Virginia Theological Seminary, Columbia University, Yale University, Rutgers University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Virginia, Davidson College, Stockton University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and TCNJ. Each committee member reviewed 1-3 universities. The review of institutional responses informed the following categorical task force recommendations:

1. Create multiple responses to unfavorable history and connections to slavery—no one particular approach.
2. Engage all segments of the community in responding to history.
3. Create readily accessible information such as an educational website and other types of social media to inform the public of past and present actions.
4. Consistent actions—creating a process of continuous dialog with students
5. Formally acknowledge how the institution benefited from the institution of slavery and stolen labor of enslaved persons.
6. Create an infrastructure and framework necessary to address new information from the continuous discovery of new data.
7. Support and encourage ongoing research, teaching, learning, and programming related to understanding the impact of slavery and racism, its outgrowth.
8. Acknowledge its roles in supporting and perpetuating harms caused by the institution of slavery and its continuing legacies, including systematic racism.

Historic Sites/Museums

The subcommittee reviewed the President’s House (Philadelphia), George Washington’s Mount Vernon, James Madison’s Montpelier, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, John Brown House (Rhode Island), National Museum of African American History & Culture. Each committee member reviewed one site. The review of historical sites/museums informed the following categorical task force recommendations:

1. Interpret the site from the perspective of the enslaved people who lived and worked there and update the interpretation through continuous research.
2. Create a memorial space/ceremony to contemplate the tragedies that enslaved people endured.
3. Involve descendants of enslaved people who lived and worked there.
4. Confront the paradox of liberty and slavery in that place/person and in the nation’s history.
5. Address the legacy of slavery through the present day to engage in dialogue and deepen the national conversation about systemic racism and racial justice.
6. Engage and educate visitors through a range of experiences on-site and online (i.e., exhibits, tours, lectures, performances, archaeology, video, website, K-12 curriculum, publications).
7. Build community partnerships to educate the public about the history of slavery in America and why it is relevant today.

Appendix II: Historical timeline of slavery in New Jersey

Rationale for Removing the Van Cleve Name from the Alumni House

August 2, 2021

Rationale for Removing Van Cleve Name (PDF)

Executive summary 

This report provides additional information to support the recommendation to remove the Van Cleve name from Alumni House, thereby referring to the building as Alumni House. The Task Force on Rider and the History of Slavery (TFHS) presented its recommendations to the President’s Cabinet on January 27, 2021 and to the Board of Trustees on March 3, 2021. In addition, we met separately as a task force with Board of Trustee Member, Marc McKithen, and President, Greg Dell’Omo, Ph.D. on April 30, 2021 to address outstanding concerns about Benjamin Van Cleve’s lifetime views on slavery. On June 23, 2021, a subcommittee of the Task Force met to provide a deeper analysis of our recommendation to remove the Van Cleve name. We also performed additional research on Van Cleve’s personal views and involvement in enslaving individuals and upholding the institution of slavery. 

The research further confirmed Van Cleve’s involvement and did not yield any documentation of his personal views or a change in his behavior renouncing his participation in the enslavement of others. In fact, we uncovered more information confirming his involvement. Additionally, the rationale for removal of the name includes a commitment to Rider’s Inclusive Excellence Plan, the effect of the history of slavery on Black and African-American students, faculty, staff, and other community stakeholders, the possible missed opportunity to be a conscientious leader in this area, and the lack of prominence of the Van Cleve name as it relates to Rider University. The report further identifies next steps for the University. 

Given the national and campus momentum for racial justice, we urge the Board of Trustees to remove the name as soon as possible. Please see the initial report for the complete analysis of the findings and recommendations of the task force. 

This report is outlined as follows: 

• Additional historical information on Benjamin Van Cleve
• Rationale for the removal of the name
• Next steps for the removal of the name

I. Additional historical information on Benjamin Van Cleve 

Upon request of the Honorable Chief Judge Marc McKithen, our co-chair, Brooke Hunter, Ph.D., performed additional research to ascertain more information about Benjamin Van Cleve’s view and actions concerning slavery over his entire life. The original report provided a summary of what we know about Benjamin Van Cleve and the enslaved people he owned. As previously noted, evidence confirms he held at least two enslaved people, a woman named Dinah and one man. Incomplete records make it impossible to determine the total number of enslaved persons Van Cleve held in bondage. Benjamin Van Cleve is not a well-known historical figure today and few historical records are known to survive about him to provide a detailed sketch of his life. 

Although information about Van Cleve’s personal views could not be found, at this time, Dr. Hunter was able to add the following information: 

Benjamin Van Cleve purchased the property that includes the land where Rider is now located by 1773. Extant tax records from 1778, 1779, 1786, 1789, and 1799 show that Benjamin, who owned 254 acres, was one of the largest landholders in Maidenhead (the township name was changed to Lawrence in 1816). Van Cleve gained prominence as a public official during the American Revolution and founding era of the United States of America. He followed his father into local government as colonial resistance to British imperial policies intensified and support for independence grew. At the age of 36, Benjamin Van Cleve answered the call to arms against British rule. He served as an officer in the First Hunterdon militia, leading troops in the Battle of Long Island in 1776. He resigned from the army on November 13, 1777 after being elected to the New Jersey Assembly. He filled the seat of John Hart, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He continued to serve in the state legislature for over two decades and was chosen Speaker of the Assembly multiple times during the 1780s. 

Slavery actually grew in New Jersey after independence. This helps explain why New Jersey was the last northern state to take steps toward abolishing slavery. The New Jersey Legislature passed the Gradual Abolition Act on February 15, 1804. Like the laws in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York, it compensated slaveholders for their lost property through forced labor. The act set the number of years of servitude for those children of enslaved mothers born after July 4, 1804, at twenty-one years for females and twenty-five for males. No enslaved person was immediately freed and newborn children were forced to serve masters for the majority of their lives. The act created two categories: slaves for life and “slaves for a term” to borrow historian James Gigantino’s phrase. However, as Gigantino argues, the lives of “freeborn children [were] indistinguishable from those who remained in legal bondage”. 

No documents have been found that give voice to Van Cleve’s opinions about slavery in his own words. However, several records demonstrate his participation in and support of slavery. 1778, 1779, 1786, and 1799, tax records document that Van Cleve owned at least one enslaved man in each of those years. 

• 1778, runaway advertisement for an enslaved woman named Dinah owned by Benjamin Van Cleve was published in the New Jersey Gazette on December 26,1778. 
• 1792, Samuel Hunt and his nephew Elias Hunt of Maidenhead were indicted for manslaughter in a horrific case of the whipping to death of a 15-year old enslaved girl named Hagar who was owned by Samuel Hunt. Samuel Hunt was released on bail and a bond for good behavior paid by Benjamin Van Cleve and Joseph Brearley. 
• 1794, he voted against gradual abolition as a representative of Hunterdon County in the New Jersey Assembly. 
• 1798, he voted in favor of maintaining slavery as a racial system of perpetual bondage passed from mother to child and for strengthening restrictions on enslaved peoples. He continued to oppose gradual abolition as a representative of Hunterdon County in the New Jersey Assembly. 
• 1802, he voted to postpone discussion of gradual abolition until the next legislative session as a representative of Hunterdon County in the New Jersey Assembly. 
• 1804, he did not participate in the vote for the Gradual Abolition Act because he lost re-election to the New Jersey Assembly in 1803.

II. Rationale for removal of the name 

A subcommittee of the task force met on June 23, 2021 to further expound on the task force’s original recommendation to change the name of the Alumni House, currently called the Van Cleve Alumni House. The following represents the conclusions and recommendations. 

Four words explain the complete rationale for removing Van Cleve’s name from the building–Rider’s Inclusive Excellence Plan (IEP). Keeping the name of an enslaver creates obstacles to reaching Rider’s goals for inclusive excellence outlined in the plan. It can be found at rider.edu/inclusive-excellence-plan. There are three primary reasons maintaining the existing name runs counter to the strategic goals of a University which promotes diversity, equity and inclusion. They are as follows: 

1. It honors history that is misaligned with our values. 

The mission of Rider includes: “We prepare graduates to thrive professionally and to be lifelong independent learners and responsible citizens who embrace diversity, support the common good, and contribute meaningfully to the changing world in which they live and work.” Keeping the name is not consistent with the mission of Rider University. As we aspire to be an institution that embraces diversity, supports the common good and contributes meaningfully to the world – maintaining the name of a building that associates our institutional history with a slave owner – honors a horrific part of our American history and neglects our opportunity to contribute to progressive change in America’s path from enslavement and dehumanizing Black bodies to an anti-racist and equitable future. Given national and campus momentum for racial justice, the time for action is now. 

2. It disproportionately and negatively impacts African-American members of the Rider community, including students, faculty, staff, alumni. 

Black Americans constantly face reminders of America’s horrendous past which began with slavery and continued through the Jim Crow south and today’s affront with police brutality against Black people. These reminders contribute to individual “stress, time and energy spent navigating hostile racial environments” (Garibay, et al. 2020). These direct individual responses to reminders of violent and unethical treatment of Black people in America run counter to our mission of maximizing success and promoting potential. A preliminary study (Garibay, West, and Mathis, 2020) on black student responses to a University’s enslavement history speaks to this psychological impact.

This type of emotional and psychological impact can operationalize with the following examples of potential negative associated outcomes: 

• Recruitment and retention of African-American students 
• Recruitment and retention of African-American employees 
• African-American alumni engagement and philanthropy 

3. It minimizes Rider’s opportunity to forge ahead as a leader for inclusive excellence – on our campus and within our surrounding community. 

By maintaining the name, the public image of Rider University is misaligned with the vision of promoting inclusive excellence. This may evoke negative perception and may hinder opportunities for community engagement with surrounding areas that are predominantly Black (e.g. Trenton), and contribute to negative public relations from the story of maintaining a tie with a known slave owner. Maintaining the name presents an additional risk of negative campus image and publicity, given many institutions have led with values to make similar name changes. 

Other justification for removing the name 

Removing the name gives Rider an opportunity to be a leader and a model of inclusiveness when dealing with the history of slavery on its campus. In removing the name, Rider will show compassion, empathy, and thoughtfulness of descendants of people adversely affected by this history. It will also show it can balance the needs of all its students, past and present, donors, staff, and faculty members. 

The name has no strong ties to Rider’s identity, in a broader context and standing in the world. Consequently, there is no brand confusion as there would be with removing the school name or major building. Therefore, keeping the name will cause more harm than good. 

III. Next steps for removing the name 

After deciding to remove the Van Cleve name from the house, thereby referring to the building as Alumni House, the Task Force proposes the following immediate next steps for Fall 2021: 

1. Develop a communication strategy in concert with key stakeholders (e.g., Marketing & Communications, Alumni Affairs, President’s office), and critical audiences we intend to message regarding our decision. 
2. Create a memorial plaque commemorating the enslaved people that lived and worked on Rider’s property and hold a memorial and dedication ceremony. 
3. Host campus/community educational programming to advance awareness about the history of slavery as it relates to ongoing means of oppression to black people in America. 
4. Create a website with the history of Rider’s connection to slavery and information about the history of Benjamin Van Cleve that recognizes the complete story of American history. 
5. Create a historical sign that interprets the history of Rider’s connection to slavery and information about the life of Benjamin Van Cleve to raise campus and community awareness about this significant history.