Middlebury College

On June 29, 2023, Middlebury's President issued a statement in response to the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action which reads in part as follows: "The litigation of these cases has included the voices of many institutions and organizations who filed amicus briefs in the cases, including Middlebury College...We will abide by the law as we stay true to our mission and commitment to create and maintain an inclusive community with full and equitable participation for all."

The Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion's Action Plan for Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion recommends developing and offering "workshops on equitable and inclusive recruitment and hiring for faculty members serving on search committees" and "workshops on equitable and inclusive recruitment and hiring for staff members serving on search committees."

The Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion's Action Plan for Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion recommends that the school, "Develop and offer ongoing opportunities for faculty and staff to engage in critical conversations and skill building related to diversity, equity and inclusion, including workshops that address racism, ableism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, religious and spiritual oppression, classism, and sizeism (Inclusive Practitioners Program)."

The Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion's Action Plan for Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion recommends that the school, "Develop and facilitate workshops related to equity and inclusion, including recognizing and responding to microaggressions, for students serving in campus leadership positions (Orientation, Residential Life, Admissions, International Student and Scholar Services, MiddSafe, Student Government, Student Organizations)."

The Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion's Action Plan for Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion recommends that the school, "Develop and facilitate new student orientation sessions that introduce equity and inclusion as core values, establish the expectation that equitable and inclusive practices are the shared responsibility of all Middlebury students, and provide information about related, ongoing development opportunities."

The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offers the "Inclusive Practitioners Program" to faculty and staff. Fall 2023 workshops included the "Anti-Racism as Everyday Practice Series" and "Who’s in the Room: Managing Power and Privilege Dynamics."

The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offers "DEI Workshops for Managers and Supervisors" which is a three-part series "focused on understanding the role that identity (race, class, gender, ability, sexual orientation, religion, etc.) plays in the workplace."

The Middlebury English Department requires "students to take at least two courses in the literature, literary history, or critical methodologies produced by historically marginalized authors or intellectuals." Through the study of these courses, students will "[l]earn the theoretical and analytical methods necessary to understanding the complexity of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, and disability in order to gain cultural and literary competence in an evolving global and American culture."

The Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion's Action Plan for Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion recommends that the school, "Develop and promote an online form that can be used to report bias-related incidents."

The Community Bias Response Team at Middlebury provides "support for individuals and groups on all Middlebury campuses who have been impacted by bias incidents." (A link to report an incident is also included on this webpage.)

The Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion's Action Plan for Anti-Racism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion recommends that the school, "Require applicants for new faculty positions to submit statements on inclusive practices in teaching, scholarship, mentoring, and/or service and use these materials to assess multicultural competence as part of the hiring process."

College received $500,000 for anti-racism initiatives. $250,000 will go to the Task Force on Anti-racism; $50,000 will go to the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS); $200,000 will be allocated through the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (OIDEI).

The college's "Anti-Racism Grants" webpage states that the "grant-awarded projects should either establish long-term institutional antiracist changes, or create a road-map with which to do so, operating at the level of an academic unit such as a department or program." Selected projects receive up to $8,000 in funding.

The mission of the Twilight Project at Middlebury is "to uncover and reckon with the histories of exclusion and marginalization at the College through archival research and public programming." One such project is the "Archives of Anti-Racist Activism," which would "collect and document the actions taken by student, faculty, and staff activists while shedding light on the knowledge they have produced regarding the institution."

In the Fall of 2022, Education for Equity and Inclusion launched a program titled "Fostering Socially Just Communities" which is a "cohort style program that invites students to critically reflect on structural and interpersonal barriers to community building, their own unlearning, and the tools for fostering socially just communities." This program runs over a period of five sessions.

The Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity at Middlebury is the "central hub for interdisciplinary and critical research and pedagogy on race and ethnicity."

The Anti-Racist Task Force sponsored "Story Circles 2021-2022: Friendship."

The library offers an "Anti-Racism Reading Guide," which includes Ibram X. Kendi's "Stamped from the Beginning."

A course titled "Race and Ethnicity in the US" is "informed by critical studies of race including texts in history, political theory, cultural studies, and anthropology."

Middlebury has an "Anti-Racism" hub website which is a "calendar of upcoming events, opportunities to learn through reading, listening, watching, and workshops, ways to connect with campus and community groups who are doing anti-racist work, leading anti-racist voices to add to your social media feeds, funding sources to support your anti-racist projects, and news and updates on the many ways both large and small that Middlebury is changing to become an anti-racist community."

A course titled "JusTalks at Middlebury" explores the "dynamics of power and privilege that reinforce systems of oppression and how those dynamics manifest in the attitudes and behaviors that occur in workshop settings."

The school’s athletics division has a DEI committee.

The college had an Anti-Racist Task Force, "which focuses on building community, the creation of PRISM...the hiring of a new director for AFC and a new student educator on equity and inclusion."

The college said, "The Middlebury Libraries’ Reparative Cataloging Project seeks to address catalog records that are historically inaccurate, offensive, discriminatory, or harmful." The college also noted, "During the 2021-2022 academic year, the updates you can expect to see include changing 'Blacks' to 'Black people,' 'Slaves' to 'Enslaved persons,' 'Gays' to 'Gay people,' 'Sexual minorities' to 'LGBTQ people,' and more!"

The school has a role for the vice president of equity and inclusion, which was announced as Khuram Hussain.