Our statement of support for our Black students, postdoctoral scholars, staff, and faculty

Our statement of support for our Black students, postdoctoral scholars, staff, and faculty from the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education and the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs:

We know that many of you are deeply affected by the persistent and senseless racial violence inflicted on the Black community by police and others. We share your outrage and frustration. We also appreciate the immediate concern many of you feel for your safety and for your loved ones, and the toll these events may be taking on your mental health and ability to focus. We want to personally state our conviction that Black lives matter. Your lives matter.

On June 10, the national #Strike4BlackLives #ShutDownAcademia #ShutDownSTEM day of action, we shared time together to pause, listen, and learn. We reflected on the current national crises and began to think about how we can act in solidarity, as individuals and as university offices—the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education and the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs—with the goals of the Black Lives Matter movement. We understand and want to support our Stanford Black community of graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, staff, and faculty who uniquely are burdened by the weight of this moment. 

Stanford University’s mission, as articulated in its Founding Grant, is “exercising an influence on behalf of humanity and civilization.” We believe that the elimination of racist systems of oppression and injustice is one of the most compelling and urgent problems facing humanity and requires our influence. We are committed to expanding our contributions to the elimination of systematic racism that fuels anti-Black discrimination and violence by police and others, through our advocacy, education, and support of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. 

In response, the VPGE and OPA have made these initial commitments:

• We will learn more about anti-Black violence and systemic racism.
• We will convene Black graduate students and postdoctoral scholars to understand how VPGE can better support them.
• We will develop programs to help us and others in the graduate student and postdoctoral scholar community learn more about systemic racism and act to eliminate it.
• We will support diversity and inclusion training for faculty and staff.

We also renew our ongoing commitment to ensure that Black students and postdoctoral scholars are actively recruited and welcomed to Stanford, that they succeed once they’re here, and that they have equitable access to resources, funding, and faculty mentoring at Stanford. We will continue to engage actively in the university’s IDEAL (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access in a Learning Community) Initiative and to lead the IDEAL Recruitment subsystem. 

We want to amplify the call that Black Lives Matter, and that the well-being and success of Black students and postdoctoral scholars matter at Stanford. We must act now and we must do better.

Learn more: 

• VPSA Black Lives Matter resources and support
• School of Medicine Black Lives Matter resources
• Stanford Community Statements of Support
• RaceWorks toolkit from SPARQtools