Leadership in the Face of Change

A Report from the Yale Alumni Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. ©2017 Yale University. All rights reserved.

Letter from the Co-Chairs:

Yale is in the midst of change. Nearly 50% of the first-year students admitted in 2017 were people of color, bringing this Fall’s incoming freshman class closer than ever to being “majority minority”. This change mirrors a shift in demographics happening across the country that brings new opportunities, and new challenges, to an institution which prides itself on being open and welcoming to all while at times struggling to turn its values of diversity, equity, and inclusion into measurable action. The Yale Alumni Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion was born to help answer the question that has come up time and again from the students and alumni who are living and learning during these turbulent times – is the university doing everything it can to fully support and engage students and alumni of all backgrounds and ensure that they have an equal opportunity to succeed within our community?

We know there are some among us who would say no. They are the students who challenged the university in Fall 2015 after a series of on-campus incidents left students of color and their allies feeling unsupported by campus culture and university policy. They are the alumni concerned with the loss of scholars of color to other institutions and the role of the cultural centers on campus. They are the members of our community who choose not to attend alumni events because they feel unwelcomed or unengaged by the groups around them. They are even those who feel that their objections to a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion mean that they will never connect with alumni who see that focus as key to their Yale experience.

Our task force is working to change their minds. Our mission is to re-energize the Yale community and administration to make a full-fledged, long-term, and public commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) that all alumni can champion. The recommendations we provide in this report will build on the steps the university has already taken in response to recent criticism and magnify them by raising consciousness, giving voice to the marginalized, and making Yale an even stronger leader within the global academic community.

Adopting our recommendations will help Yale to not only maintain its position as a leader among the world’s premier academic institutions, but also ride the wave of demographic change in front of us, do the right thing for the Yale community, and support its own long-term business and financial growth. Organizations and corporations that embrace DEI routinely generate greater creative thinking and innovation, increase staff retention, and achieve stronger bottom-line performance than those that do not. But reaching these goals requires the full and full-throated support of organizational leadership and the entire Yale community. We have an absolute imperative to change and grow or face the challenge of forever playing catch-up, and we are confident that Yale can and will succeed in living up to it.

In this report, we set the bar high. We are challenging Yale to take its rightful place as a leader at the forefront of social change, to be nothing less than the beacon of DEI excellence throughout higher education. We make this challenge because we love our alma mater. We passionately believe in what Yale can achieve if it dedicates resources and energy to the values and communities it has long championed.

The actions we take today will make all the difference tomorrow, not only for Yale’s alumni, but for the entire Yale community. Talent may be equally distributed, but opportunity is not, and we must make Yale a community in which everyone – regardless of ethnicity, race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, place of origin, beliefs, or identity – is given an equal opportunity to participate, to lead, and to serve. For Yale, this means making DEI a non-negotiable priority, alongside our never-ending quest for academic freedom and excellence. Change is here and we must embrace it; we must make Yale the institution leading the way.

Sincerely,
Sheryl Carter Negash '82 and Ken Inadomi '76
Co-Chairs, Yale Alumni Task Force on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion