Princeton seminary students asking for reparations

Princeton Theological Seminary last year released a report describing its founders' and early faculty's ties to slavery. Now, some of its students want the school to take it a step further and provide reparations as financial restitution for its role in the slave trade.

A group of black seminarians have collected more than 400 signatures in an online petition calling on the New Jersey school to "make amends" by setting aside $5.3 million annually - or 15 percent of what the seminary uses from the school's endowment for its operating expenses - to fund tuition grants for black students and establish a Black Church Studies program.

A progressive seminary like Princeton could be a pioneer by distributing reparations, said Justin Henderson, president of the Association of Black Seminarians, the group behind the petition. The school has confessed and repented for the "sin" of its role in slavery, but "repentance doesn't end with confession," said Henderson, who will finish his master of divinity studies in May.

"Restitution is evidence of the repentance.," he said. "This is how we know the person has repented."