Diversity Statements

Below are a series of statements that can be used as students, staff and faculty see fit in their materials and events. All of these statements have been approved by Faculty Senate. The Diversity Syllabi Statement was created by the Anti-Racism Task Force Transition Team subcommittee in AY21-22. This statement is not intended to replace an existing statement that a unit may have created, but rather to serve as a template for units who may not have a diversity statement.

The Land Acknowledgment and Racial Equity statements were written by the Standing Committee on Race, a committee of faculty, staff and students formed from the work of the Great Place Initiative (GPI).  

Diversity Syllabi Statement

Kent State University is committed to the creation and maintenance of equitable and inclusive learning spaces. This course is a learning environment where all will be treated with respect and dignity, and where all individuals will have an equitable opportunity to succeed. The diversity that each student brings to this course is viewed as a strength and a benefit. Dimensions of diversity and their intersections include but are not limited to: race, ethnicity, national origin, primary language, age, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, mental and physical abilities, socio-economic status, family/caregiver status, and veteran status.

Land Acknowledgment Statement

We acknowledge that the lands of Kent State University were the previous homes of people who were removed from this area without their consent by the colonial practices of the United States government. Before removal, these groups created networks that extended from Wyoming to the Florida Coast and Appalachia and to the northern reaches of Lake Superior. These societies included people of the Shawnee, Seneca-Cayuga, Delaware, Wyandots, Ottawa and Miami. We honor their lives – both past and present – and strive to move beyond remembrance toward reflection and responsibility through honest accounts of the past and the development of cultural knowledge and community.

Racial Equity Statement 

Kent State University has a storied history of advocacy and student activism that informs and shapes both the identity and actions of the institution and its community members. KSU takes pride in its reputation as an institution where anti-racism has taken roots since at least the late 1960s and early 70s through the collective resistance of Black students, faculty and staff against systemic racism and inequalities in the United States. This activism has continued to the present day.

Kent State is committed to working collectively to dismantle systemic injustice so that Black, Indigenous, Asian American, Hispanic and all People of Color feel that they belong, are welcome and that they can fully participate in our university community.

Challenging these structural forms of oppression requires a dismantlement of the racist and racialized structures that sustain them. To make this dismantlement of racism possible, we pledge to:

• Review and enact our institutional policies in ways that are true to our values

• Engage with community

• Educate and inform faculty, staff and students

• Utilize our institutional and collective power to correct issues of inequity in our communities

• Correct and prevent injustices in our institutional and unit-level practices

• Foster open and productive dialogue that is both robust and respectful

• Fearlessly speak to our values

Kent State University community will continue to work towards opposing all forms of racial discrimination, harassment, intimidation, hatred, belittling, stereotypes, condescension, microaggressions and recognize their legacies which ostracize groups based on race and skin color. We understand that these forms of domination have historically existed within structural and systemic oppressions supported by classism, sexism, ageism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and other markers.

We will work to create an anti-racist university where all individuals are treated equitably with respect to their varied racial experiences and to foster that aim throughout the fabric of our institutional culture and community. Our shared effort to improve racial equity involves not only internal instructional, programmatic, environmental and policy decisions, but also the recognition of the university’s roles as an economic driver, community partner, and public policy influencer.