This past April, a group of black law students at Washington and Lee University in Virginia who call themselves ‘The Committee’ demanded that the University, among other things, formally apologize for having been a part of the slave trade between 1826 and 1852.

On Tuesday, the President did just that in a letter to the general student body.

Here’s more from Scott Jaschik at Inside Higher Ed:

Washington and Lee moves Confederate flags, apologizes for having owned slaves

In recent years, many colleges have considered their institutions’ ties to slavery, and how to appropriately acknowledge that history. Such a discussion has come to a head at Washington and Lee University, where the president on Tuesday acknowledged and apologized for a history in which the university owned slaves, and announced that Confederate flags that have been on display next to a statue of Robert E. Lee will be removed.

The president’s statement followed several months of sometimes divisive debate after a group of black law students demanded a series of changes at the university — some of which are addressed in the president’s letter.

Few colleges are as closely tied to a Confederate hero as is Washington and Lee. Robert E. Lee was president of what was then Washington College from 1865, shortly after he surrendered his army, until 1870, when he died. As president, he led the college to financial stability and expanded the curriculum. His ideas are credited with the eventual development of the university’s honor code. Shortly after he died, the board of the college changed the name of the institution to Washington and Lee. All presidents since Lee have lived in his house.

The black law students — members of a group called “The Committee” — in April demanded a series of changes at the university, where they said some practices alienated black students and prospective students. They called for the removal of the Confederate flags from the Lee Chapel, making Martin Luther King Day a campus holiday, a ban on “neo-confederates” who “march on campus with Confederate flags on Lee-Jackson day,” and a formal apology “for the university’s participation in chattel slavery” and “Robert E. Lee’s participation in slavery.” (While the university lets the group the Committee called neo-confederate hold events in the campus chapel, officials have repeatedly denied that there have been marches across campus with Confederate flags.)