The Department of Anthropology at UW-Madison is committed to fostering a diverse, equitable and socially just community of students, faculty, staff, and alumni. We condemn all forms of prejudice and discrimination in classrooms, offices, laboratories, fieldwork sites and other settings. We recognize that we live and work in a society where racism, sexism, ableism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, religious intolerance, and other forms of discrimination intersect in complex ways, privileging some and marginalizing others.
We recognize our potential impact on communities around the world, including where our field was built on a foundation of colonialism. We acknowledge the damage done by some anthropological work, especially to Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities and our shared environments. As a department, we support work that makes positive contributions in the communities in which we conduct research. We also recognize our obligation to review the legacies of our field and to transform our current practices, where necessary, to ensure both just relationships and sound research.
As part of our ongoing commitment to tackling inequality, our department commits to:
- Creating and maintaining inclusive and welcoming environments, whether in our classrooms, research fields, or administrative offices.
- Actively recruiting and retaining students, scholars, faculty, and staff from under-represented communities.
- Further incorporating discussions of power inequities and privilege in our curriculum and intervening to mitigate their effects when they arise in our classrooms and other research, learning, and departmental contexts.
- Supporting efforts to ensure that our students learn from diverse intellectual traditions and voices, including the work of those who belong to historically excluded groups.
- Developing procedures for intervening in classrooms, research, and administrative contexts to address disrespectful, discriminatory, and unprofessional behavior.
- Promoting inclusivity in governance by ensuring appropriate representation of faculty, staff, and graduate students on departmental committees.
- Maintaining zero tolerance for sexual misconduct in the classroom, laboratory, field, and other work and research settings.
- Creating forums for ongoing conversations about climate issues within our department, institution, and communities.
- Providing opportunities for our community to learn about inclusivity and how to promote it.
- Supporting an active DEI committee to promote active dialogue and collaboration in support of these commitments.
- Revisiting this document annually.
We commit to working collectively and to using the tools of our discipline to address specific modes of social inequalities.