The news that Harvard University is setting aside $100 million to study and address the repercussions of its historical ties to slavery is only one such recent announcement by wealthy American institutions of higher education grappling with their pasts. In 2021, Georgetown University in Washington D.C. announced its own $400,000 annual financial aid reparations program affirming its obligations to the descendants of over 200 enslaved persons sold by that institution in the 1830s, including paying for tuition at Georgetown. And in the Commonwealth of Virginia last year, a law was passed requiring public universities to provide financial aid and scholarships for descendants of individuals formerly enslaved by state-sponsored institutions.

These monetary commitments offer an important way for universities to reckon with their slavery-derived wealth. But the significant sums being provided to handle these complex issues may obscure another truth: It will take much more than money for elite schools to begin to address their foundational ties to America’s slaveholding past. These financial gestures also offer no way forward for institutions that do not possess such resources.

In our work helping organizations navigate historical accountability, we know that the crucial first step for coming to terms with the past is to pause and sit with the facts of what happened — to gather as much nuanced historical analysis as possible, to let multiple contemporary voices be heard. The money used to fuel those conversations need not overshadow the real work, which is engagement, study, reflection, and the transparent communication of the results of these efforts.

In our experience, there are three main concerns to keep in mind as universities and other institutions — such as foundations, nonprofits, and town and city governments — engage in this work of coming to terms with the past.

First, leaders of these processes must rely, as have Harvard, Georgetown and many other schools, on thorough, scholarly review to provide us with the facts and perspective necessary to grasp the full complexity of our country’s past with slavery. This can include creating boards of scholarly advisers and marshaling the expertise of trained archivists. Alongside scholarly engagement, ensuring that a wide range of participants from students to descendants, faculty to staff, become involved in the process is also significant. Facing its own complex history, Princeton University recently developed a website that allows for the suggestion of new names for buildings and spaces on campus. Many other schools are employing time-consuming — but not necessarily costly — ways to involve key stakeholders in discussions, through classes, lectures, and focus groups.

Second, we need to right-size the conversation and organize the work into patterns that make practical and emotional sense. The ultimate goal is to acknowledge and address the deep ties between the past and a white-supremacist worldview. But there will always be individual cases or issues that need to be dealt with as they arise. Harvard, for example, is still refusing to give up photographs of enslaved persons taken by Louis Aggasiz, an eminent white scientist, that are housed in its Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Tamara Lanier, a descendant of those slaves — who were stripped to the waist and forced to pose for a study of racial inferiority — argues that these photographs belong to the family. Meanwhile, the name of Agassiz is affiliated with Harvard professorships, buildings, and museums. This issue around a single Harvard scientist and a group of formerly enslaved persons is representative of how hard it is to disentangle slavery from Harvard’s own self-image. Designing a process that makes room for individual cases even as an institution pursues its overarching goal is also crucial; the particular will, and must, punctuate how the general process unfolds.

Third, and perhaps most important of all, we need the kind of sober, generous leadership from all of our elite universities that Harvard has shown in the last decade. The initiative at Harvard began at President Drew Faust’s behest in 2016 and was sustained under the leadership of the current President Bacow. Our own work has shown that it is the commitment of senior leadership to do what’s right, despite tensions between alumni and faculty, students and administrators, that makes all the difference.

Leaders such as those at Harvard and many other schools have gained attention for the significant financial commitment that they have made to undoing the wrongs wrought by slavery. We applaud that gesture. But we also hold that schools and institutions without deep pockets can make a difference as well, with means as simple as commitment and conversation. Simply pausing to gather the historical facts, reflect on them, place them within a carefully articulated process, and create avenues for inclusive discussion are steps that institutions with dedicated and thoughtful leaders can and should embrace. And it need not cost $100 million.