Stern School of Business

The school's Office for Diversity and Inclusion states that its goal is to "[i]ncrease diversity of applicant pools, while ensuring that the selection processes are based on merit with special care taken to reduce biases related to age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and other personal characteristics that are unrelated to performance."

Stern's Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity, and Strategic Innovation offers a training session titled "Justice Zone" where students, staff and faculty can "develop an understanding of frequently used concepts—such as diversity, equity, and social justice—through the lens of race and racism."

Stern's "Change: Studio" is a co-curricular program "designed to help MBAs become adept at understanding, impacting and driving change" and begins at orientation with all students participating in "Social Identity Exercise" and "Inclusive Leadership Training" sessions.

Stern's Human Resource page links NYU's "Non-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy and Complaint Procedures for Employees" page.

NYU Stern's Code of Conduct page links the university-wide Bias Response Line and email to report student misconduct.

Stern has various programs and partnerships that help advance DEI. The Breakthrough Scholars Leadership Program is a four-year program that gives a group of "highly talented and high-performing" students from diverse backgrounds a full scholarship to attend Stern Undergraduate College. The Berkley Achievement Scholars Program enables a select group of talented students with financial need from all over the country to attend the Stern Undergraduate College tuition-free.

The Fred Renwick Visiting Faculty Fellows Program aims to "...enrich Stern’s culture and classroom experience with professors who can bring the voices, values, and perspectives of Black/African-American and other underrepresented or indigenous groups to our community."

The Breakthrough Scholars Leadership Program at Stern was formed in 2015 and in 2021 received a $50 million gift from its namesake, Leonard N. Stern. The program "equips a select group of highly-talented and high-performing undergraduate students from diverse backgrounds with the skills and relationships needed to grow and excel at school and in their professional careers." The award includes "full tuition, housing, and bespoke programming which includes orientation programming, cohort-based leadership workshops, corporate visits, professional development workshops, and faculty mentorship."

Stern participates in the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management program which is an "alliance of American business schools and top corporations established to enhance diversity in business education and leadership by helping to reduce the serious underrepresentation of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans in both the member schools' enrollment and the ranks of management."

The goal of Stern's Diverse Pathways in Academia program is to "share information with doctoral students from groups that are underrepresented among business school faculty about academic careers within business schools" and is "geared toward scholars in either their penultimate doctoral year or the year prior from the fields of psychology and sociology whose work can be applied to a business field." The eligibility section states that students must be "Underrepresented Minority Doctoral Candidates in their Penultimate Year."

The Experiential Education program at Stern "creates academic experiences to connect curriculum theory to real business application" and strives to "create teams of diverse backgrounds, identities and skill sets." The program also creates "opportunities to engage in discussion and dialogue with key stakeholders, classmates and teammates."

A BusinessBecause article highlighted how NYU Stern was fighting anti-Asian hate, with the school urging students to report acts of racism and bias to the NYU Bias Response Line and the Stern Asian Business Society inviting the Stern community to a virtual gathering to discuss the Atlanta hate crimes in March 2021.

Aiming to promote DEI, Stern founded the College and Career Lab initiative, which is a free, intensive summer program designed to empower middle- and high-school students from the NYC area to prepare for postsecondary education and career success.

Hoping to create diverse pathways in academia, the NYU Stern's Diverse Pathways in Academia (DPA) invites non-business doctoral candidates in their penultimate year or the year prior to participate in a program exploring academic careers in a business school setting.

NYU's Provost's Office created the Postdoctoral Fellows program, which aims to attract and support top-notch scholars from diverse backgrounds who are on track to join the faculties of the world's leading universities. Stern is a participant in this program. Postdoctoral fellows spend two years at Stern, during which they are mentored by and work with some of its leading faculty.

Stern's Fred Renwick Visiting Faculty Fellows Program annually welcomes four visiting faculty fellows who have a commitment to focus on "uplifting voices, values, and perspectives of Black/African-American and other underrepresented or indigenous groups in [the Stern] community to promote inclusivity, equity, and belonging."

In January 2021, Stern's Center for Sustainable Business published a research report titled "U.S. Corporate Boards Suffer From Inadequate Expertise in Financially Material ESG Matters." The report's introduction states the following: "Climate change, water scarcity, pollution, #metoo, #blacklivesmatter, worker welfare, employee diversity, bribery, human rights abuses, supply chain scandals…not to mention COVID-19…These are just a few of the environmental, social, and governance issues (ESG) that are creating material risks and opportunities for corporations and investors, yet many boards have little related oversight or expertise." The report goes on to state, "...across all ESG topics, the topical and urgent issue of workplace diversity had the largest number of directors with relevant credentials (5.0%). Mainly these directors were involved with boards or initiatives that focused on increasing minority leadership...." The report also noted how corporations responded to the mass-racial protests of 2020 and stated the following: "stakeholders are calling for change in how the business does its business, rather than just charitable giving. In response, some companies took actions to enhance diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts with an emphasis on underrepresented groups."

The Leadership Accelerator program at Stern includes a course titled "Inclusive Leadership."

Stern's Full-Time MBA Course Index includes a course titled "Leading Inclusive Teams" which is a "leadership development course for managers who are faced with the challenge of managing, leading, motivating, and maximizing the output of work teams that have a diversity of social identities...." Students "will develop a plan to grow their intercultural capacity as well as the capacity of their work teams."

Stern's Full-Time MBA Course Index includes a course titled "Inclusive Conversations" which is described as follows: "Research shows that being on inclusive teams makes people more creative, more diligent, and harder-working, and that more diverse leadership teams outperform their less diverse peers in financial returns....This course aims to develop mindful, inclusive communication skills to nurture belonging and increase success for all. With this course, you will gain a foundational knowledge of inclusive language, build awareness of your identities and their relationship to inclusion, and practice increasing inclusion and cross-difference understanding."

Stern's Full-Time MBA Course Index includes a course titled "Real Estate Primary Markets" which poses the following questions as part of its description: "What is the purpose of business in society? Is there a role for markets and business in issues of civic good, justice, equality, education, environment, health or collective action?" The purpose of this course is to "provide students with the essential conceptual frameworks and tools for creating successful social entrepreneurial ventures, initiatives, programs or partnerships that seek to tackle global poverty and collective action problems."

On July 27, 2023, the school held an event titled “'The Aftermath'—The Work Ahead: Conversations on Civil Rights and Affirmative Action," in which the description states, "[i]n the aftermath of the US Supreme Court’s significant ruling on admissions practices at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, we must now critically examine the implications of this ruling for universities and beyond."

In March 2023, Stern's Center for Sustainable Business published its "Practitioners' Guide to Embedding Sustainability" report which dedicates several chapters to diversity, equity, and inclusion. For example. the report states the following: "According to BCG [Boston Consulting Group], 76% of employees are looking for a diverse workforce environment. Studies by McKinsey & Company and others demonstrate that a diverse workforce improves productivity and performance. Diversity should be sought at all levels in the company and should reflect the broader population."

The Office of Student Engagement at Stern "strives to foster a community culture that empowers students with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences, and creates space for students to learn from each other while building inclusive networks and relationships."