Commitment to Universal Anti-Racism Training

Friday, June 5, 2020

Dear SPH students, staff and faculty,

We hear you loud and clear! More than 300 of you signed a letter this week calling for widespread anti-racism training across the School of Public Health. We are heartened to see such broad-based support for school-wide training.

SPH leadership enthusiastically supports universal anti-racism training for faculty, staff and students, and we are committed to providing the leadership and resources needed to make it happen.

This goal is consistent with our Road Map for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI). It also aligns with our new Strategic Plan, which explicitly calls out our commitment to anti-racism in public health as a core part of our identity. We all agree that racism is an ongoing public health crisis and a major determinant of health and well-being, and that it is deeply rooted in our institutions.

Victoria Gardner, assistant dean for EDI, will convene the school’s EDI Committee over the summer to review available anti-racism trainings and recommend which trainings we should use, so that we can begin rolling out these trainings in Fall 2020. Members of the SPH community who wish to contribute to this effort as ad hoc members of the EDI Committee should email Victoria at vg@uw.edu. We are grateful for the work that our EDI committees across the school and countless others have put in so far, and thank those of you who are willing to work on this initiative over the summer.

We recognize that trainings alone will not be sufficient to create the cultural and systemic change needed but, if done well, they are a great first step. We also commit to integrating anti-racist training into our professional development activities for faculty and staff, including those related to teaching and supervision. In addition, we commit to work with the SPH Faculty Council and human resources teams to put into place incentive structures needed to create real change.

Over the summer, we also will create a dashboard of relevant metrics – available for all to see – that will show our progress in achieving the goals laid out in the EDI Action Plan, such as increasing our diversity and retaining students, staff and faculty of color. We commit to continuing to have conversations across the school about these goals, the metrics used to assess them, and our progress, and to making modifications as needed.

Thank you for your passion and perseverance. We acknowledge the deep pain and anguish that many of you – especially our Black community members – are experiencing during these challenging times. Together, we will do better to create a more just and anti-racist society, starting with work in our own school.