PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – A committee examining Brown University’s centuries-old ties to the slave trade issued a report Wednesday recommending the creation of a memorial and an academic center focused on slavery and justice.

The Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice – formed three years ago to look into its “grievous crimes” of the past – also recommended that the university’s relationship to the slave trade be introduced to freshmen as part of their orientation and calls for a commitment to recruit and retain minority students, especially those from Africa and the West Indies.

“We cannot change the past,” according to the 106-page report, released on the university’s Web site. “But an institution can hold itself accountable for the past, accepting its burdens and responsibilities along with its benefits and privileges.”

In 2003, Brown President Ruth Simmons, the first black president of an Ivy League school and a descendant of slaves herself, appointed a 16-member committee of students, faculty and administrators to study the university’s ties to the slave trade and recommend how the college should take responsibility.

As part of its research, the committee had discovered a document hanging in University Hall – the oldest building on campus – that mentions slaves whose labor helped build it. The school’s first president, James Manning, owned a slave at one time. In addition, the committee says it identified roughly 30 members of the college’s governing corporation who owned or captained slave ships.

Although the committee said Brown needs to help those disadvantaged by the legacy of the slave trade, it does not recommend creating scholarships specifically for African-American students. Although the report said the idea is logical, it would run counter to Brown’s current policy of offering scholarships based on need.

The report strikes an academic tone, tracing the university’s centuries-old link to slave traders and calling slavery a “crime against humanity”

that left an ugly legacy of discrimination and a wide gulf between rich and poor. It describes how Brown’s endowment benefited from it.

ers’ contributions and says the university is accepting responsibility for “its part in grievous crimes.”

“If this nation is ever to have a serious dialogue about slavery, Jim Crow, and the bitter legacies they have bequeathed to us, then universities must provide the leadership,” the report says.

Brown, the nation’s seventh oldest university, was formally chartered in 1764 as the College of Rhode Island. Its founder, the Rev. James Manning, freed his only slave but accepted donations from slave owners and traders, including the Brown family of Providence.

Nicholas Brown, a wealthy merchant, was listed in the school’s charter. His brother, John Brown, a slave trader, paid for half the cost of the college’s first library.

While John Brown defended slavery until his death, another brother, Moses Brown, and Nicholas Brown’s son, Nicholas Jr., became ardent abolitionists and worked to end slavery by pushing for a tougher prohibition against slave ships entering American ports. Nicholas Brown Jr. is the university’s namesake.

Simmons said in a letter to the Brown community on Wednesday that she had asked the committee to hold a public forum to discuss the report. She also praised the university for a “remarkable history of truth seeking and progressive action.”

“That this history presents itself in many facets does not surprise; that it gives us a window onto our own time and the opportunity to see how we might respond to current human rights issues is undeniable,” Simmons wrote.

Committee Chairman James Campbell, an associate professor of American civilization and Africana studies, said the panel was responsible for examining slavery through the broader context of modern-day injustices.

“Our sense of what appropriate actions might be has been guided by our undertaking of what kind of institution Brown is and what it does best – which is to learn and to teach,” said James Campbell, the committee chairman and an associate professor of American civilization and Africana studies.

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