It all started as a rather ran-of-the-mill campus controversy over race and slavery: an anti-reparations ad ran in The Brown Daily Herald; students cried foul, formed human chains and demanded "reparations" in the form of free advertising for the opposing side; still others responded with shouts of "political correctness." But then something entirely unexpected happened. Rather than just hunker down and wait for the shouting to subside, Brown University President Ruth Simmons did something courageous. She decided to seize on the eminently "teachable moment" and convene a campus-wide committee to study in depth the issues of slavery, the role the institution held in the state's and Brown's history, and the question of what form, if any, efforts at restorative justice should take. This article describes responses to the Committee on Slavery and Justice and it's work. Two excerpts from the special report "Slavery, the Brown Family of Providence and Brown University" conclude the article.