Professors Robin Ely and Lakshmi Ramarajan warmly invite you to Harvard Business School for what will be the 10th gathering of scholarship and fellowship on May 4th & 5th, 2023. This year, we are excited to continue the event under our new name, the Race, Gender & Equity at Work Symposium. The theme we’ll explore this year is “Tools for Humanity: Rage and Love as Acts of Resistance and Renewal,” which we propose as a counterpoint to last year’s theme, where we engaged with Audre Lorde’s provocative claim that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” At that gathering, we examined whether and how various institutions and practices in the U.S.—capitalism, gender, companies’ diversity-equity-and-inclusion initiatives, and higher education—constitute master’s tools. The discussion was deep and generative but left us hungering for something more constructive, more affirmative. If not the master’s tools, then what?

We aim to foster with you a wide-ranging, sophisticated, and substantive conversation. Throughout both days, we will strive to create opportunities for attendees to make meaningful connections, with the aim of generating new collaborations and initiating mutually beneficial projects. The conference will include themed panels that highlight important research insights, as well as shorter “flash talks” that feature new findings, ideas, and insights, and an experiential component that invites attendees to further explore the theme.

We’ll kick off the conference with an informal reception on the evening of May 3rd. We will convene on the HBS campus at 8:30 AM on Thursday, May 4th and will officially conclude by 2:00 PM on May 5th.