In 2006 Brown University issued an impressively detailed, 106-page report on the institution’s historical connections to slavery. The professors who worked on the report — which was undertaken at the behest of Brown’s president, Ruth J. Simmons — hoped many other universities would do likewise, digging into their own, often-unsavory pasts, and sharing those findings with the world.

That hasn’t happened, at least not yet. But a new course at the University of Maryland at College Park seems to be following Brown’s lead. The two-semester class, according to today’s Washington Post, will examine the university’s ties to the slave trade and prepare a report for the campus’s president, C.D. Mote Jr.

What will happen after the report is finished is unclear. The question of whether to apologize or attempt to make amends has been a vexing one — and not just for colleges. Maryland is one of just a handful of states to express regret for slavery. —Thomas Bartlett