Harvard Divinity School is committed to diversity, inclusion, and belonging (DIB) as an expression of our shared community values, and attends to the needs of our vibrant, pluralistic community of faculty, students, staff, and alumni. We carry out these values through our authentic embrace of diverse religious and non-religious traditions, and other dimensions of diversity.
Associate Dean of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Melissa Wood Bartholomew, is a leader in this community-wide effort. Dean Bartholomew collaborates with the Racial Justice & Healing Committee and the Standing Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (both comprised of faculty, students, and staff—see lists below) to build a restorative, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive Harvard Divinity School. Our intentional focus on the multiple and intersectional dimensions of DIB will help to ensure that HDS is an institution where all members of its community can flourish and feel a deep sense of belonging.
Building a Restorative Anti-racist and Anti-oppressive Harvard Divinity School
This vision expresses our explicit commitment to dismantling racism and other systems of oppression at HDS. It envisions a school actively engaged in examining policies, systems, and practices, and implementing changes where necessary to ensure the institution is in alignment with this vision. Particular attention will be paid to identifying explicit and implicit racism, white supremacy, and other systems of oppression in the classroom, curricula, and pedagogy, and to working towards their eradication.
The work also requires that members of the school community personally engage in the ongoing self-examination needed to unlearn and heal from internalized racism, oppression, and unconscious and conscious bias. Individual, interpersonal, and institutional commitments to anti-racist and anti-oppressive work are all necessary to confront and redress racist and oppressive systems. These commitments are foundational to cultivating healthy relationships for a vibrant learning community. This will further strengthen our study of religion in service of a just world at peace across religious and cultural divides.
