Oregon Health and Science University

On June 29, 2023, OHSU issued a statement in response to the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action which reads: "OHSU has not admitted students solely on the basis of race. We regret that the Court’s decision does not seem to recognize the continuing effects of systemic racism in our country and, with respect to OHSU’s mission, the resulting health disparities evident in our community. OHSU will continue to sustain its deep commitment to recognizing and dismantling systemic racism and to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging."

"All OHSU staff and students are highly encouraged to take part in unconscious bias training from the Center for Diversity and Inclusion. Training is required for all managers who make hires."

The Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences has a Team for Inclusion, Diversity and Equity (TIDE) that "is a collective effort towards consistently and explicitly accounting for the historical and cumulative burden of systemic racism and discrimination that continue to disproportionally affect Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and LGBTQIA2S+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit, etc.) individuals today." The team aims to "Assist with reviewing or developing new institute policies to improve our research environments from a DEI perspective" and "Provide ad-hoc consultations or DEI-related workshops with specific labs or Institute members if or when needed."

The Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences' "TIDE convenes monthly meetings and events such as 'How to have difficult conversation’ when addressing peers, partners or supervisors when dealing with microaggressions.'" The institute also "organized a whole day symposium on social determinants of health attended by 75 people from OHSU and across Oregon."

Administration will be taking steps to ban “hateful imagery”.

A new university policy "requires that all admissions staff and committee members undergo unconscious bias and anti-racism training. Admissions committees also must include trained faculty observers and members with diverse and/or underrepresented backgrounds or experiences."

The HR department is in the process of recruiting an employee to gather data on the experiences of employees who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC); an employee to create well-being programs for BIPOC employees; and an employee to support BIPOC employees.

The university is looking for a "diversity trainer" for "organizational training on unconscious bias".

"The Center for Diversity and Inclusion and the Office of the Provost are offering Racial Equity and Inclusion Anti-Racist Funding Opportunities. Twenty awards of $10,000 each will be given to projects that promote diversity goals and anti-racist behavior."

The university offers diversity and inclusion-focused internships, such as the Equity Research Program.

The university announced, "The Center for Diversity and Inclusion and the Office of the Provost are offering Racial Equity and Inclusion Anti-Racist Funding Opportunities. Twenty awards of $10,000 each will be given to projects that promote diversity goals and anti-racist behavior." The funding aims to "Promote anti-racist practices in recruitment and retention in education programs" and "Support development of education initiatives and policies that value equity and inclusion."

OHSU has a Faculty Diversity Fund, which serves to temporarily supplement financial support for faculty recruitment and retention.

In July 2023, the School of Nursing was awarded a grant for "Building a Diverse Nurse Practitioner Workforce and Advancing Health Equity in Underserved Communities in Oregon" by the  Health Resources and Services Administration. The purpose of the grant is to "increase the number and diversity of family nurse practitioners (FNP), psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNP), nurse midwives (CNM) and pediatric nurse practitioners (PNP)...."

The university "created a task force to review the operations, use of force and structure of the OHSU Department of Public Safety. The task force includes community members; members of OHSU Employee Resource Groups and the Anti-Racism Committee; and members of the administration, faculty and staff."

The university created an "Anti-Racism and Social Justice Taskforce" to "Identify, document and report on barriers to staff and students of color. Gather feedback from the OHSU community. Recommend changes. Monitor and report progress to the OHSU community."

OHSU appointed a senior vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Oregon Institute of Occupational Health Sciences has a DEI in Research Task Force that "takes into account the issues of systemic racism, discrimination, unconscious bias, and other adverse historically-based issues affecting Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) and LGBTQIA2S+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit, etc.) individuals."

The university hired a senior vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion.

The university also has a Anti-Racism and Social Justice Taskforce and a Diversity Advisory Council. The Diversity Advisory Council will be, "Reviewing and commenting on policies while centering anti-racism and rewriting bylaws to incorporate anti-racism."

The university has a Foster Respectful and Equitable Education project, which aims to "Create a respectful learning community" and "Provide an equitable and culturally inclusive education."

The university also said, "The Center for Diversity and Inclusion is working with Dr. Karen Eden to add anti-racism resources to OHSU’s 'Respect for All' smartphone app... The center worked with OHSU Library Services to create an anti-racism and health-disparity resources web page." The university also introduced an "introduced an Inclusive Language Guide."

The Faculty Observer program started in August 2021 and is supposed to "train, support and manage faculty members who become volunteer consultants that help admissions committees enact practices to lessen the effects of unconscious bias in the admissions process."

The Foster Respectful and Equitable Education project (FREE initiative) aims to create a respectful learning community and provide an equitable and culturally inclusive education. The project includes workshops, other events, and a range of materials and strives to support OHSU academic programs as they meet a requirement to review and report work toward diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Center for Diversity and Inclusion hired a diversity communications specialist, an associate director, a program manager for education programs, and five diversity education trainers.

OHSU has an Inclusion Ambassador Program where employees volunteer or are nominated to become trained ambassadors. These Ambassadors strive to make anti-bias approaches part of OHSU’s culture.

OHSU has an unconscious bias training dashboard to track participation in unconscious bias training. The model can be adapted to track participation in other equity and anti-racism efforts.

OHSU has an Institutional Anti-racism Guidebook, which is a complementary learning tool that accompanies the 45 minutes asynchronous session offered by the Center for Diversity and Inclusion. This training is designed to provide participants with an understanding of concepts of institutional racism. Participants will learn strategies for identifying and beginning to address everyday policies and practices that create or reproduce inequities.

OHSU has a list of recommended anti-racist books to read, including How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi and Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge.

The HEART series is an institutional race, equity, and inclusion online speaker series at OHSU funded by a grant through the Racial Equity and Inclusion Funding Opportunity sponsored by the Center for Diversity and Inclusion and Educational Improvement and Innovation; the planning committee is a collaboration of volunteers from OHSU Health Services, Clinical Psychology, Dermatology, Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, and Research & Innovation. HEART will provide opportunities for OHSU members to learn about the "role that systems of oppression have in creating inequitable social structures."

OHSU's Racial Equity and Inclusion Center empowers its members to become "active change agents through anti-racist and racial equity education while working with [its] community to change harmful structures and policies."

OHSU has an Alliance for Visible Diversity that works to "increase visible diversity within graduate programs."

OHSU hosted a Health Equity Symposia where the community learned about the efforts to improve health equity in Oregon.

OHSU's Health Equity Organization was created in part to serve "Oregon's population [which] is growing and becoming more racially and ethnically diverse." One of the main objectives of the organization is to "eliminate health disparities" in Oregon.

OHSU's "Inclusive Language Guide" was created "in the wake of President Danny Jacobs’ June 2020 proclamation that OHSU will work to dismantle systemic racism." The guide is meant to be a tool used to help members/practitioners with inclusive communications on such topics as race and ethnicity, immigration status, and gender and sexual orientation.

OHSU's DEIB Committees include the Diversity Advisory Council and Anti-Racism Committee which was "created to help identify, prioritize and advise on anti-racism initiatives at OHSU."

OHSU has an Anti-racism and Diversity News publication that is available only to OHSU "members."

OHSU recently appointed Derick Du Vivier, M.D., M.B.A., as Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Labs are required to submit plans for how they will practice anti-racism, and plans will be analyzed to identify best practices.

OHSU's StoryCorps project includes StoryShare, a joint effort of the Patient Experience team and the Center for Diversity and Inclusion which captures interviews with underrepresented minorities from the OHSU community. The Center for Diversity and Inclusion creates a toolkit for each recording that groups can use for reflection and discussion.

OHSU added an annual day of paid leave to honor Juneteenth.

A series of town halls focusing on anti-racism started on August 13, 2021. These town halls aim to promote best practices in labs and solve problems related to racism in scientific data.

HSU has a Vaccine Equity Committee that works to "improve access to COVID-19 vaccines for Black/African American, Asian, Latino, Pacific Islander, Native American, and other communities."

OHSU has a diversity mural on campus that honors significant events and people in the university's history that support diversity within the institution.