Carnegie Mellon University

CMU's 2025 Strategic Plan recommends the following action: "Identify and institute best practices in student recruitment, admission decision-making and enrollment to recruit a strong and diverse student body."

The College of Engineering's 2021-2025 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Plan states that "the college and individual departments should play a role in broadening the engineering pathway for underrepresented and underserved students..." Additionally, the plan states, "This focus aligns with President Jahanian’s commitment to recruit more students from underserved communities, particularly within the Pittsburgh region."

On June 29, 2023, CMU's President issued a statement on the Supreme Court's ruling on race-based admissions which reads in part as follows: "Our university was founded on a commitment to expand opportunity and access to education, and we remain steadfast in that commitment as key to creating a transformative educational experience for all. While we are studying the opinion to determine the implications for all of our processes, we have confidence in our ability both to follow the law and to promote access and opportunity as essential to fostering a vibrant learning community."

Mandatory Intersectional Orientation Training for Incoming students.

New DEI initiatives at the university’s Language Technologies Institute include increased training and education in the LTI Mentoring Program and developing “policies, procedures, and structures related to admissions, recruiting, hiring, evaluation, retention, reward and promotion for students, staff, and faculty” toward greater diversity.

Regarding staff recruitment, the College of Engineering's 2021-2025 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Plan recommends the following action: "Partner with department heads and staff administrators to incorporate DEI-relevant training into the staff professional development experience."

Anti-racism, Anti-sexism, Racial bias cultural competency requirements for graduation.

Cultural Competency required course will look at “Power” and “Privilege.”

Regarding its curriculum, the College of Engineering's 2021-2025 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Plan recommends the following action: "Infuse inclusive teaching pedagogy into the engineering curriculum by adjusting two undergraduate courses and two graduate courses per department."

Regarding its curriculum, the College of Engineering's 2021-2025 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Strategic Plan recommends the following action: "We recommend modifications to the course description to require that the experience includes a component related to DEI, regardless of whether the student holds a leadership position."

The university is hiring for a faculty position in "Anti-Racist & Equitable Practices in Theatre." The university said, "Applicants should have training/experience in instructing or facilitating workshops around anti-racism, anti-oppression, equitable practices, and decolonial practices in theatre and education; proven capacity to craft, build, and instruct/facilitate effective courses and sessions based on that training; and a proven record of leading expansive discussions and crafting a welcome learning environment for a diverse and potentially cross-generational community," in its listing in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

CMU's 2025 Strategic Plan recommends the following action: "Enhance standards for recruiting practices, including mandatory training in implicit bias for search committees."

The Robotics Institute created the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee which also offers the Robotics Institute Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Fund. The RI DEI Fund will “financially support students from underrepresented backgrounds,” “help with outreach activities to battle racial inequality and injustice,” and “fund recruiting activities for under-represented students and faculty to the Robotics Institute.”

On February 22, 2023, it was announced that Carnegie Mellon University received a $116 million fund donated by the Norman and Ruth Rales Foundation. $34 million of this sum will be used towards the establishment of the CMU Rales Fellows Program whose candidates are from “low socio-economic backgrounds, first-generation college students, graduates of minority-serving institutions and other groups who remain underrepresented in STEM.”

The Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion hosts the Center Fellowship program which "cultivates skills in undergraduate students...with a passion and commitment to identity work as it relates to socially and historically minoritized populations." Additionally, "Fellows will work to advance social justice and the mission of the Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion across the university."

The Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging announced that is has "[l]aunched the Strategic Faculty Opportunity Fund to support recruitment, retention and development of outstanding scholars who bolster diversity and equity within the university; $7.5 million has been awarded to date resulting in 13 hires."

CMU's School of Architecture will host its first "Anti-Racist School of Architecture Virtual Symposium" which will focus on the "intersection of architecture, race, and education".

The university's Robotics Institute has curated a list of anti-racism resources, including "The Anti-Racism Project: Resources" and Ibram X. Kendi's "How to be an Antiracist."

The Center for Diversity and Inclusion provides an Anti-Racism Resource Guide created by CMU's Graduate Student Assembly.

After the Derek Chauvin verdict, the Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer released a list of "Anti-Racism and Racial Justice" resources, including "Resources for White People to Learn and Talk About Race and Racism (Fractured Atlas)" and "103 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice."

The Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion suggested that community members "identify the anti-racist organizers in your community and ask how you can help."

In April of 2022, the College of Fine Arts at Carnegie Mellon University celebrated Diversity Month with programming to highlight the diversity of the community and “center the responsibility to counter our biases.”

The Robotics Institute has compiled numerous anti-racism resources.

CMU outlines its bias reporting protocol which is a "non-disciplinary mechanism for reporting and informally resolving incidents of alleged bias focusing on education, restoration, and strengthening and upholding our core values as a university community."

CMU has named its inaugural Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

The university's Information Networking Institute made a commitment to anti-racism, saying, "At the INI, we recognize that supporting anti-racism is not a question of politics or ideology, but rather humanity. We must all do our part to end racial injustice once and for all." The school urged its community members to, "Make a Personal Commitment to Anti-Racism" and "Recognize that it is a privilege for some members of our community to educate themselves about racism, rather than experience it firsthand."

Counseling and Psychological Services released a mission statement, which partially reads, "Counseling and Psychological Services (CaPS) recognizes that the fields of psychiatry, psychology, social work and counseling are entrenched in supremacist ideology that has caused significant harm to marginalized communities. At CaPS, we intentionally work toward the undoing of white supremacist ideology in our clinical work by actively engaging in socially-just, anti-racist practice."

In September of 2022, Uji Anya, an untenorred anti-racist professor at Carnegie Mellon University, defended her comments celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s death and wishing “her pain be excrutiating” by stating, “if anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star.” The university issued a statement saying that while it does not “condone the offensive and objectionable messages,” they will not be punishing the professor since “free expression is core to the mission of higher education.”

The Integrated Innovation Institute at Carnegie Mellon University “is committed to engaging a diverse and connected global community, and to upholding the principle of equity, which, as a partner to excellence, is the foundation for ensuring that faculty, staff, and students have opportunities to succeed and thrive.”

On March 3rd, 2022, the English department at Carnegie Mellon University hosted a Virtual Panel on Race and Pedagogy with Panelists Carmen Kynard, Keith Gilyard, and April Baker-Bell. The speakers “shared their experiences with, and research on, systemic racism rooted in education.” In addition, “the speakers encouraged attendees to think critically about how educators can approach writing pedagogy and communication with students, specifically through the lens of Black linguistic justice.”

Carnegie Mellon University hosted Ibram X. Kendi for the 2021 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Keynote Lecture. Ibram X Kendi is an Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and founding director of the Boston University Center for Anti-racist Research.

On February 15, 2023, Carnegie Mellon announced that, “Anne Robinson, head of Carnegie Mellon’s Department of Chemical Engineering, served on the organizing committee for the first National Diversity Equity Workshop for Chemical Engineering Academic Leaders (NDEW-ChE).” Furthermore, there will be an “emphasis” on “integrating an inclusive culture into the mission of the department” at Carnegie Mellon.

The College of Fine Arts will have a theme of Accountability and Allyship in all programming.

Carnegie Mellon hosted a DEI Book Display for Black History Month.

Carnegie Mellon University announced on December 9, 2022 that its School of Music has partnered with the Allegheny Health Network for the Lullaby Projection for this semester. The partners have “incorporated trauma-informed care and cultural responsive pedagogy into the songwriting process.” Specifically, it was announced that the project was “able to supplement what the Lullaby Project required with additional training, teaching and facilitation on culturally responsive pedagogy, cultural competencies, critical race theory and thinking and understanding forms of oppression.”

In 2023, Carnegie Mellon University is offering a 2-day conference workshop which “aims to create a more diverse community of researchers in computing.”