The mission of the Harvard Business School is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. To make the greatest difference, leaders must respect and draw on the full palette of human talent. They cannot adopt the fundamental tenet of racism—that one race is inherently inferior or superior to other races. Moreover, for HBS itself to attract the most promising talent and have its greatest impact, we cannot tolerate social systems and structures that hold back individuals because of their race. Racism is a direct contradiction to our mission.

Racism—in any form—is also a direct affront to our values. For decades, HBS has listed first among its Community Values “respect for the rights, differences, and dignity of others.” Racism is a blatant violation of the respect we expect every member of our community to demonstrate for others.

We acknowledge with great regret that racism continues to cast its ugly shadow at HBS. HBS has always been, and continues to be, fully committed to complying with federal and state civil rights laws. But just refraining from unlawful discrimination will not eradicate racism and its pernicious effects from any nation, university, or school. Four centuries of anti-Black racism in America have left many Black Americans facing steep, systemic barriers to opportunities and outcomes—for instance, with less family wealth, fewer influential connections, and worse access to education. Legal compliance alone will not dismantle such barriers.

Two consequences of such barriers concern us. First, we have not achieved racial equity[1] within Harvard Business School despite past efforts to create a culture of inclusion. This truth is evidenced by the underrepresentation of Black faculty, students, and staff at HBS and of Black protagonists in our case collection (see data here), as well as the painful accounts of inequity and insensitivity we have heard from faculty, staff, students, and alumni.

Second, we have not done enough to promote racial equity beyond HBS. Persistently and pervasively, Black Americans have been denied equal opportunity in business. As an institution that has long prided itself on educating business leaders and shaping business practice, Harvard Business School is complicit in this reality. We cannot tout our influence on business and deny our influence on the individuals, systems, and structures that contribute to racially discriminatory practices and outcomes in business.

We resolve to address these twin failings. Our vision is that HBS will become an organization in which all members of our community recognize, identify, and actively dismantle the barriers that hold back Black members of our community. We will attract talented Black students, staff, and faculty and create a culture in which they can thrive, make their greatest contributions, and feel a strong sense of belonging. In doing this work, we aim to become a model for other organizations. As HBS improves internally, we will educate others—via our MBA, Doctoral, Executive Education, and HBS Online programs, through our research and course material, and via our alumni network—to recognize and break down racial barriers.

In sum, we aim to advance racial equity within HBS and to educate leaders who advance racial equity in other organizations. Achieving this vision will require a demanding journey, involving both vigorous immediate action and sustained efforts to change our very culture. The basic roadmap toward our intended destination is as follows:

• We will establish a Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer and a Racial Equity Initiative that will work with existing HBS structures to achieve three objectives:
1. Attract more Black faculty, students, and staff to HBS. We will do this by reaching more thoroughly into talent pipelines and pools, confronting current practices that impede diversity, and making HBS a place where talented Black individuals can thrive.
2. Develop and disseminate research and course material that advance racial equity. We will do this by making the Initiative a vibrant place to conduct research, extending our networks to reach Black case protagonists, and leveraging Harvard Business Publishing’s strong distribution platform.
3. Equip our students to become leaders for racial equity. We will do this by infusing our curricula with coherent sets of new and existing materials on race and by developing our faculty to deliver the material well.
• As we develop the requisite knowledge and credibility, we will engage with the broad business community to promote racial equity. We will start humbly, learn from others, and then act more assertively.
• Across all of these efforts, we will hold ourselves accountable for progress by measuring outcomes, revealing measures publicly, and empowering a board of advisors to keep us on track.

The rest of this document lays out in detail the specific future actions we have committed to take.