Georgetown University

June 2020: University Holds Racial Justice Dialogue in Wake of Recent, Past Police Brutality.

In April 2021, the Provost committed to guiding academic departments in changing curricula, and to increase the impact of diversity in admissions.

On June 29, 2023, Georgetown's President issued a statement in response to the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action which reads in part as follows: "While we are deeply disappointed in today’s decisions and will continue to comply with the law, we remain committed to our efforts to recruit, enroll, and support students from all backgrounds to ensure an enriching educational experience that can best be achieved by engaging with a diverse group of peers. Affirmative action was built on hope — the hope that we could be better in the future than we’ve been in the past. Georgetown embraced this hope. Now, we will need to find new ways of restoring this hope."

Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business “is implementing a system of 7 Cs to guide our DEI efforts: composition, communication, curriculum, co-curriculum, careers, community, and culture.”

The Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching & Service teaches students how to protest, and partners with the ACLU and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to teach them their rights. Additionally, students can learn how to write their city councilor urging them to defund the police.

The Center for Multicultural Equity and Access offers new students a pre-orientation program to help them become social justice activists.

Georgetown announced the establishment of a new Racial Justice Institute (RJI) and the hire of three faculty members in the areas of law, the arts, health and public policy who will lead the institute’s interdisciplinary work that pushes the frontiers of knowledge about race, equity and action. The Racial Justice Institute at Georgetown will serve as a hub where scholars, activists and thought leaders may work across the academic, policy and advocacy spaces and serve as a place to seed and inspire the next generation of scholars and leaders addressing the vestiges of enslavement and well-being of Black, Indigenous and people of color.

Georgetown’s Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation is working towards “soliciting written proposals from qualified firms that specialize in helping organizations transform into more diverse, equitable, and inclusive environments.”

Georgetown University Police Officers are required to participate in Implicit Bias/Cultural Competency Training several times a year. The training consists of in-person and on-line sessions. Names and photos of all officers are published on the website.

The Chemistry Department published anti-racism resources, "adapted from the Breonna Taylor Organization."

Georgetown College Hosts Racial Justice Speaker Series to Promote Equity and Inclusion

In Spring 2020, Georgetown launched its first-ever cultural climate survey, inviting degree-seeking students at our Main Campus, the Law Center and the Medical Center to share their perspectives and experiences about different aspects of campus life. Led by our Campus Cultural Climate Survey Working Group, comprising representatives from the Main Campus, the Law Center, and the Medical Center, the survey was adapted from the Culturally Engaging Campus Environments questionnaire developed by the National Institute for Transformation and Equity. The survey provided students the opportunity to reflect on a range of issues—their sense of belonging, experiences involving bias, prejudice, and discrimination, campus accessibility, the classroom environment, and University resources and responsiveness.

The report of the campus climate survey was released in April 2021. “The task for us, within our Georgetown community, is to build and sustain a culture that encourages respect, inclusion, equity, and understanding that responds to and rejects all forms of discrimination.” – President John J. DeGioia

Georgetown offers an Executive Certificate in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. "The Executive Certificate in Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion prepares you to analyze, diagnose, and address diversity, equity, and inclusion issues within organizations. As a student in the program, you’ll gain the leadership skills and insights needed to support a strategic, sustainable approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion management while utilizing knowledge of yourself as an agent of change in the workplace."

The Georgetown University Library provides an Anti-Racism Toolkit with a number of resources on anti-racism, social justice, Black Lives Matter, systemic racism, white privilege, and anti-oppression including a number of works by Ibram X. Kendi.

The Doyle Conversations on Anti-Racism in Higher Education is a series hosted by the Doyle Engaging Difference Program that discusses the anti-racism work by students, faculty and staff at Georgetown University which “occurs in a wide variety of settings, from curriculum design, to classroom learning, to student life.”

Georgetown celebrated Black History Month 2022 with a number of scheduled discussions and events on Anti-Racism, Black Life, Black Identity, Anti-Blackness and Settler Colonialism, Social Justice, Black Educators in White Spaces, and Black Lives.

On October 31, 2022, the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security announced a slew of new courses being offered in Spring 2023, one of which is “Diversity and Inclusion in Conflict Resolution and Development.” The class description states that it will, “review how diversity and inclusion are important to peace and prosperity” and work towards “advancing diversity and inclusion in the practice of diplomacy, conflict resolution and international development.”

The Center for Multicultural Equity and Access has established the Black House, where “residents are encouraged to design programs to promote, foster and acknowledge diversity and community on campus.”

The Center for Multicultural Equity and Access has a space known as La Casas Latina which serves as a “centralized location of inclusivity in which Latinxs can share their narratives, access resources integral to success on the Hilltop, and engage in vital discussions about the intersectionality of race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, gender, ability, privilege and power within the Latinx identity.”

Members of the Georgetown University community testify in support of a proposed resolution declaring racism a public health crisis in Washington, DC.

On January 29, 2023, school officials released a statement on the death of Tyre Nichols and stated, "We condemn this senseless violence in the strongest terms and stand together in solidarity with our African American community and all of those impacted by the heinous conduct of the police resulting in Tyre’s death. We reaffirm our long-standing commitment to racial justice and diversity, equity and inclusion."

Georgetown Law has a Racial Equity in Education Law & Policy Clinic which was established in Spring 2022. It is stated that, “the Clinic employs a Critical Race Theory (CRT) approach to interrogate the role of the law and public policy in reproducing racial inequities in education and the promise of law and policy to help eliminate them.”