Demand 2A - Expand educational programming and training

As we work to increase the diversity of our community through reforms to admissions and hiring, it is imperative that we create an environment at MIT that actively supports URMs and women. In-person training of all students, staff, and faculty on implicit bias and harassment represents an essential step in moving toward an inclusive culture, as training provides a platform for establishing shared behavioral expectations. In order to roll out implicit bias and harassment training, MIT must hire more education specialists in the ICEO, IDHR, and VPR offices; the work required to train the entire campus vastly exceeds the present capacity of these offices, as MIT only currently employs two education specialists among these offices.

Demand 2B - Hire DEI officers for departmental accountability

Each department at MIT has unique culture and climate issues that can lead to inferior environments for students with marginalized identities. The inclusion of graduate diversity officers at the department level is one way to counter such a phenomena. We have seen many universities take this approach and improve attrition rates among marginalized students, and MIT must follow suit. Additionally, this position will report to the ICEO to ensure departmental accountability toward internal goals. By cultivating personal relationships with students and understanding the nuances of their departments, graduate diversity officers will develop local climates that broadly foster diversity and equity.

Demand 2C - Provide Institute-wide support for anti-oppressive research and labor

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The present national climate has highlighted systemic and pervasive barriers that disproportionately affect marginalized communities. While MIT has a rich history of success in STEM fields, it must commit greater resources to anti-oppression scholarship. We call on the Institute to invest additional funds towards anti-oppressive research in the form of annual seed grants. Furthermore, the Institute must support the individuals who push MIT’s climate in the direction of diversity and inclusion: graduate students. Many MIT initiatives to foster equitable environments are led by students. We call on MIT to create department-level, partial fellowships to fund graduate students engaged in this critical work.

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