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The Guardian
5 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Key people in Edinburgh University's slavery and colonialism inquiry
The legacies of some of Edinburgh's most celebrated professors and graduates have come under new scrutiny, after new evidence emerged about their roles in forming and perpetuating racist theories, or donating money gained from transatlantic slavery to the city's university. Edinburgh University will consider renaming buildings and repurposing some of its most famous events and prizes linked to these figures. The people named in the university's investigation into its own history and legacies of enslavement and colonialism include: A famous 18th-century moral philosopher and mathematician (1753-1828) who lectured Edinburgh students – including a future British prime minister – that black Africans were inferior to Europeans because they were 'savages'. He opposed slavery and said 'inferior' races could be perfected over time. Yet in common with predecessors such as Adam Ferguson at Edinburgh and the French philosophers Buffon and Montesquieu, he upheld the view that humans were ranked in six tiers, with white Europeans at the top. The university's slavery and decolonisation review said Stewart was the most popular lecturer of his day. Students, 'many of whom went on to elite careers in politics and imperial administration', crowded into his lectures. Some went on to build careers as race scientists. 'Through his pedagogy, he exerted great, if somewhat indirect, influence on the intellectual landscape of early 19th-century Britain,' the review found. The university's review has said renaming the Dugald Stewart building, a prominent modern block on its Edinburgh campus opened in 2008, would be a 'strong test case' for its new renaming policy. A former Edinburgh medical student, Dr Gunning (1818-1900) became extremely rich after settling in Brazil, where slavery was legal and endemic, to become a physician to the local elite, including Emperor Pedro II. He later served as a doctor and then commissioner for a major gold mining enterprise that exploited enslaved miners. Britain had outlawed slavery in 1833, making it illegal for Britons to enslave people, yet Gunning is widely believed to have held up to 40 enslaved people on his Palmeiras estate near Rio de Janeiro. He denied that, claiming they bought their freedom by working for him. Gunning invested in other colonial enterprises, including gold mines in India and shipping firms. He became a noted philanthropist, donating significant sums in Britain and Brazil, including funding numerous academic prizes, scholarships and academic posts at Edinburgh, particularly in theology and medicine, which are believed to have paid out millions in benefits to recipients. Those include three of Edinburgh's best-known current honours: the Gunning Victoria Jubilee prizes in medicine and in divinity and the Gunning lectures. The university's slavery and decolonisation review has found it holds £5.4m derived from his gifts. It has recommended that money be repurposed to fund anti-racist decolonisation projects and help pay for a new centre for the study of racisms, colonialism and anti-black violence. One of the most prominent advocates globally of the racist science of phrenology, which wrongly linked skull shape with intelligence, George Combe (1788-1858) co-founded the Edinburgh Phrenological Society with his brother. It gathered a skull collection absorbed by the university and still held by it. He also backed other phrenologists, including in the US, and wrote one influential text that heavily outsold Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. The Combe brothers studied medicine at Edinburgh. The Combe Trust was set up from the assets of George's estate (wealth partly derived from his writing and lecture tours advocating phrenology) and endowed the university's first professorship in psychology in 1906, known as the Combe professorship. The Combe Trust now funds a visiting fellowship in the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities lasting two to three months. The fellow must deliver a lecture 'emerging from the interests of George Combe', on areas such as religion and religious education, physiology and health. The 'most distinguished' students in logic and metaphysics at Edinburgh each year are given prizes set up by Margaret Stuart Tyndall Bruce (1788-1869), an heiress whose mother was Indian and her father a Scots lieutenant in the Bengal artillery who had substantial estates in India, England and Scotland. Her brother John Bruce was Edinburgh's professor of logic and metaphysics, while her uncle John bought Falkland Palace, one of Scotland's best-known medieval houses, and its surrounding estate in Fife. She inherited her father's and uncle's wealth after they died, which was significantly derived from her father's Indian estates. In 1865, she left £10,000 to the university for scholarships named in memory of her uncle Prof Bruce. The school of philosophy, psychology and language sciences still awards 'Bruce of Grangehill prizes', which have a current accumulated value of £1.6m, funds which may be repurposed after the university review.
The Herald Scotland
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Edinburgh University had 'outsized' role in racist science
A report entitled Decolonised Transformations: Confronting the University of Edinburgh's History and Legacies of Enslavement and Colonialism found that the institution raised the equivalent of at least £30million today from slavery and empire linked sources, with the value potentially over £800m if measured by 'Relative Output' which measures the amount of income or wealth relative to the total output of the economy. It found that: "The University of Edinburgh was a haven for professors and alumni who developed theories of racial inferiority and white supremacism, such as the idea that Africans were inferior to whites and that non-white peoples could be colonised for the profit of European nations. Read More: "These ideas provided powerful intellectual justifications for enslavement and colonialism and underpinned the rapid expansion of European empires around the world. "University of Edinburgh professors and alumni played an outsized role in developing racial pseudo-sciences that created civilisational hierarchies and habitually positioned Black people at the bottom and white people at the top. "These ideas also provided the basis for British ethnology. Examples include Adam Ferguson, Dugald Stewart, David Hume, James Cowle Prichard, Robert Knox and Arthur James Balfour who, through research and teaching, proliferated racist ideas against African, Asian, Middle Eastern and other non-European peoples that underpinned enslavement and colonialism." In a modern context, the report found many students and staff from racial minorities face ongoing racism, with reporting systems 'potentially inadequate' as these did not tend to be reported. The report also made reference to the Balfour Declaration, the letter from British foreign secretary and chancellor of the University of [[Edinburgh]] to Lord Rothschild favouring the creation of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. The UK Government had pledged to recognise Arab independence in the region in exchange for support against the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, and had also secretly agreed with France to divide what was then Ottoman Syria between the two nations. A protest at the University of Edinburgh (Image: Newsquest) Following the war, British Mandatory Palestine was established and eventually partitioned to create modern day Israel and Palestine. The report said: "One of the University's longest serving Chancellors, Arthur James Balfour (1891–1930), played a unique role in establishing and maintaining a century-long process of imperial and settler-colonial rule in Palestine through the 1917 Balfour Declaration. "This Declaration led to the partitioning of Palestine and the permanent exile of many Palestinians from their homeland. "Balfour assumed race to be a social and biological fact and upheld the right of white Europeans to govern and dominate non-Europeans. This racist view directly affected his attitude towards his governance of imperial and domestic affairs. "The University of Edinburgh continues to be entangled in the historical harms that Balfour instigated through its direct and indirect investments that are supporting the Israeli government's human rights and international law violations against Palestinian people today." Students currently enrolled at the University have protested about the institution's ties to [[Israel]] in the context of its ongoing occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, and it's military operations in the former. The report said: "To date, the University of Edinburgh's senior leadership team and Court have not demonstrated sufficient direct engagement with the requests emerging from one of the most well-supported community mobilisations in the history of the University. "Importantly, this mobilisation is comparable to the successful divestment campaign that took place in the 1970s from another apartheid state, South Africa. In 1971, the University of Edinburgh listened to students and staff, and after intense protests it sold all its investments complicit with apartheid. 148 But in the case of Palestine, the senior leadership team has deployed a 'conflict agnostic' approach, a term that denies the Nakba and its settler-colonial afterlife. Read More: "This approach also means that the University of Edinburgh runs the risk of eluding due diligence and exposing itself to complicity with genocide, crimes against humanity and an illegal occupation." The report recommended that the University of Edinburgh de-adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition, which is used by most UK universities, includes 11 examples to support that definition, seven of which reference the state of Israel. Falling under its definition of antisemitism are "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour", "applying double standards by requiring of it a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation", and "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis". The University of Edinburgh report said: "The IHRA definition violates academic freedom and freedom of speech by framing any criticism of Israel's policies of settler-colonial dispossession driven by state racism as a form of antisemitism." The report further found that donations explicitly sought from slavers were used to help build the Old College on South Bridge in the 1790s and the old medical school near Bristo Square in the 1870s. The university had at least 15 endowments derived from African enslavement and 12 linked to British colonialism in India, Singapore and South Africa, and 10 of those were still active and had a minimum value today of £9.4m. It currently has close to 300 skulls gathered in the 1800s from enslaved and dispossessed people adherents of phrenology, a racist pseudoscience which holds that intelligence can be determined by skull shape.
The Guardian
5 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Key people in Edinburgh University's slavery and colonialism inquiry
The legacies of some of Edinburgh's most celebrated professors and graduates have come under new scrutiny, after new evidence emerged about their roles in forming and perpetuating racist theories, or donating money gained from transatlantic slavery to the city's university. Edinburgh University will consider renaming buildings and repurposing some of its most famous events and prizes linked to these figures. The people named in the university's investigation into its own history and legacies of enslavement and colonialism include: A famous 18th-century moral philosopher and mathematician (1753-1828) who lectured Edinburgh students – including a future British prime minister – that black Africans were inferior to Europeans because they were 'savages'. He opposed slavery and said 'inferior' races could be perfected over time. Yet in common with predecessors such as Adam Ferguson at Edinburgh and the French philosophers Buffon and Montesquieu, he upheld the view that humans were ranked in six tiers, with white Europeans at the top. The university's slavery and decolonisation review said Stewart was the most popular lecturer of his day. Students, 'many of whom went on to elite careers in politics and imperial administration', crowded into his lectures. Some went on to build careers as race scientists. 'Through his pedagogy, he exerted great, if somewhat indirect, influence on the intellectual landscape of early 19th-century Britain,' the review found. The university's review has said renaming the Dugald Stewart building, a prominent modern block on its Edinburgh campus opened in 2008, would be a 'strong test case' for its new renaming policy. A former Edinburgh medical student, Dr Gunning (1818-1900) became extremely rich after settling in Brazil, where slavery was legal and endemic, to become a physician to the local elite, including Emperor Pedro II. He later served as a doctor and then commissioner for a major gold mining enterprise that exploited enslaved miners. Britain had outlawed slavery in 1833, making it illegal for Britons to enslave people, yet Gunning is widely believed to have held up to 40 enslaved people on his Palmeiras estate near Rio de Janeiro. He denied that, claiming they bought their freedom by working for him. Gunning invested in other colonial enterprises, including gold mines in India and shipping firms. He became a noted philanthropist, donating significant sums in Britain and Brazil, including funding numerous academic prizes, scholarships and academic posts at Edinburgh, particularly in theology and medicine, which are believed to have paid out millions in benefits to recipients. Those include three of Edinburgh's best-known current honours: the Gunning Victoria Jubilee prizes in medicine and in divinity and the Gunning lectures. The university's slavery and decolonisation review has found it holds £5.4m derived from his gifts. It has recommended that money be repurposed to fund anti-racist decolonisation projects and help pay for a new centre for the study of racisms, colonialism and anti-black violence. One of the most prominent advocates globally of the racist science of phrenology, which wrongly linked skull shape with intelligence, George Combe (1788-1858) co-founded the Edinburgh Phrenological Society with his brother. It gathered a skull collection absorbed by the university and still held by it. He also backed other phrenologists, including in the US, and wrote one influential text that heavily outsold Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. The Combe brothers studied medicine at Edinburgh. The Combe Trust was set up from the assets of George's estate (wealth partly derived from his writing and lecture tours advocating phrenology) and endowed the university's first professorship in psychology in 1906, known as the Combe professorship. The Combe Trust now funds a visiting fellowship in the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities lasting two to three months. The fellow must deliver a lecture 'emerging from the interests of George Combe', on areas such as religion and religious education, physiology and health. The 'most distinguished' students in logic and metaphysics at Edinburgh each year are given prizes set up by Margaret Stuart Tyndall Bruce (1788-1869), an heiress whose mother was Indian and her father a Scots lieutenant in the Bengal artillery who had substantial estates in India, England and Scotland. Her brother John Bruce was Edinburgh's professor of logic and metaphysics, while her uncle John bought Falkland Palace, one of Scotland's best-known medieval houses, and its surrounding estate in Fife. She inherited her father's and uncle's wealth after they died, which was significantly derived from her father's Indian estates. In 1865, she left £10,000 to the university for scholarships named in memory of her uncle Prof Bruce. The school of philosophy, psychology and language sciences still awards 'Bruce of Grangehill prizes', which have a current accumulated value of £1.6m, funds which may be repurposed after the university review.
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Is VNYTX a Strong Bond Fund Right Now?
Having trouble finding a Muni - Bonds fund? Vanguard NY Long-Term Tax-Exempt Investor (VNYTX) is a potential starting point. VNYTX carries a Zacks Mutual Fund Rank of 1 (Strong Buy), which is based on various forecasting factors like size, cost, and past performance. VNYTX is one of many Muni - Bonds funds to choose from. Muni - Bonds funds invest in debt securities issued by states and local municipalities, which are typically used to pay for infrastructure construction, schools, and other government functions. These securities can be backed by taxes (revenue bonds), but others are known as " general obligation " and are not necessarily backed by a defined source. These bonds are especially attractive because of their inherent tax benefits. Vanguard Group is responsible for VNYTX, and the company is based out of Malvern, PA. The Vanguard NY Long-Term Tax-Exempt Investor made its debut in April of 1986 and VNYTX has managed to accumulate roughly $488.43 million in assets, as of the most recently available information. Adam Ferguson is the fund's current manager and has held that role since June of 2013. Of course, investors look for strong performance in funds. This fund has delivered a 5-year annualized total return of 0.66%, and is in the top third among its category peers. Investors who prefer analyzing shorter time frames should look at its 3-year annualized total return of 1.7%, which places it in the top third during this time-frame. It is important to note that the product's returns may not reflect all its expenses. Any fees not reflected would lower the returns. Total returns do not reflect the fund's [%] sale charge. If sales charges were included, total returns would have been lower. When looking at a fund's performance, it is also important to note the standard deviation of the returns. The lower the standard deviation, the less volatility the fund experiences. Over the past three years, VNYTX's standard deviation comes in at 8.58%, compared to the category average of 11.25%. Over the past 5 years, the standard deviation of the fund is 7.46% compared to the category average of 10.57%. This makes the fund less volatile than its peers over the past half-decade. Modified duration is a measure of a specific bond's interest rate sensitivity, and is an excellent way to judge how fixed income securities will respond to a shifting rate environment. For investors who think interest rates will rise, this is an important factor to consider. VNYTX has a modified duration of 8.3, which suggests that the fund will decline 8.3% for every hundred-basis-point increase in interest rates. Since income is, of course, a big reason for purchasing a fixed income security, it is always important to consider the fund's average coupon. This metric calculates the fund's average payout in a given year. For example, this fund's average coupon of 4.2% means that a $10,000 investment should result in a yearly payout of $420. While a higher coupon is good for when you want a strong level of current income, it could present a reinvestment risk if rates are lower in the future when compared to the initial purchase date of the bond. Since income is just one part of the bond picture, investors need to consider risk relative to broad benchmarks. VNYTX carries a beta of 0.85, meaning that the fund is less volatile than a broad market index of fixed income securities. With this in mind, it has a positive alpha of 0.63, which measures performance on a risk-adjusted basis. Investors should also consider a bond's rating, which is a grade ( 'AAA' to 'D' ) given to a bond that indicates its credit quality. With this letter scale in mind, VNYTX has 71.9% in high quality bonds rated at least 'AA' or higher, while 24.5% are of medium quality, with ratings of 'A' to 'BBB'. The fund has an average quality of AA, and focuses on high quality securities. For investors, taking a closer look at cost-related metrics is key, since costs are increasingly important for mutual fund investing. Competition is heating up in this space, and a lower cost product will likely outperform its otherwise identical counterpart, all things being equal. In terms of fees, VNYTX is a no load fund. It has an expense ratio of 0.17% compared to the category average of 0.83%. So, VNYTX is actually cheaper than its peers from a cost perspective. This fund requires a minimum initial investment of $3,000, and each subsequent investment should be at least $1. Fees charged by investment advisors have not been taken into considiration. Returns would be less if those were included. Overall, Vanguard NY Long-Term Tax-Exempt Investor ( VNYTX ) has a high Zacks Mutual Fund rank, and in conjunction with its comparatively strong performance, average downside risk, and lower fees, Vanguard NY Long-Term Tax-Exempt Investor ( VNYTX ) looks like a good potential choice for investors right now. For additional information on this product, or to compare it to other mutual funds in the Muni - Bonds, make sure to go to for additional information. For analysis of the rest of your portfolio, make sure to visit for our full suite of tools which will help you investigate all of your stocks and funds in one place. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Get Your Free (VNYTX): Fund Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
