Reed College

On June 29, 2023, Reed's President issued a statement in response to the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action which reads in part as follows: "The ruling undermines years of precedent established by the Supreme Court that had allowed race to be considered as one of many factors in admissions. Schools in states where race has been prohibited as a factor in admission experienced immediate declines in enrollment of students from underrepresented backgrounds...It is too early to fully understand the impact of this decision on our higher education community. While the path will be difficult, we remain committed to making Reed a diverse and inclusive community.

The Dean for Institutional Diversity has announced numerous hires to address diversity on the Reed campus, and to participate in work groups to develop new trainings.

One of Reed's 2022–23 Strategic Priorities is to "[p]rovide anti-racism training and professional development opportunities to students, faculty, and staff."

The Office for Institutional Diversity at Reed College provides "Inclusive Practice Workshops" for faculty and staff which include workshops that focus specifically on the topic of "students of color."

As part of its commitment to DEI (updated October 30, 2024), Reed has introduced several new "Inclusive Hiring Initiatives," including "unconscious bias training for numerous departments that employ student workers" and "prioritizing DEI training for new hires."

After student protests in 2017, Reed College made significant changes to its required Humanities 110 course taken by all freshmen.

The English department at Reed College spotlighted Professor Pancho Savery who “teaches the Beat Generation, critical race theory, and Ibsen and Shaw.” Furthermore, “Pancho also teaches Humanities 110—an intensive, year-long course required of all first-year students—and is a strong advocate for the conference-style learning that happens at Reed.”

Reed's Office for Institutional Diversity outlines its bias reporting system and states that it "encourage[s] all community members to help create an environment free of bias and harassment by modeling honorable behavior, discouraging inappropriate behavior in others, and speaking up when one is the target of or witness to discriminatory harassment."

In the summer of 2022, Reed "[l]aunched unconscious-bias training modules for all new employees."

Reed has "allocated $28,000 to support the programming of the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC), Students for Education, Equity, and Direct Service (SEEDS), and International Student Services (ISS)."

The Office for Institutional Diversity Mission Grant at Reed College is an "internal funding opportunity to promote, uplift and advance our Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism (DEIA) mission here at Reed." Proposals are eligible for up to $2,000 in funding.

The Social Justice Research and Education Fund at Reed College "supports paid student internships...for projects or research that focuses on community engagement, civic engagement, equity, and/or social justice."

As part of is commitment to DEI (updated October 30, 2024), Reed offers funding for the Social Justice Internship Program which "fosters hands-on experiences that contribute to a more equitable campus and community."

Campus safety staff go through a series of trainings in various issues surrounding equity.

Reed College has joined the Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance hosted by the University of Southern California’s (USC) Race and Equity Center. The alliance is a newly formed group that brings together 51 liberal arts colleges from across the country to work and learn together to support and elevate racial equity and anti-racism initiatives on each campus.

Reed College has formed numerous committees to study diversity on campus.

The Office for Inclusive Community (OIC) seeks to build a diverse and inclusive community at Reed. The Office for Inclusive Community includes the Multicultural Resource Center (MRC), the Peer Mentor Program (PMP), and SEEDS (Students for Education, Equity, and Direct Service) Community Engagement Program.

Reed College has a program in Comparative Race and Ethnicity Studies that is “intended for students who wish to combine focused study in anthropology, dance, English, history, music, religion, sociology, or theatre with comparative interdivisional work on race and ethnicity.”

The English department at Reed College “offers courses on a range of critical topics such as race theory, Shakespearean mimesis, contemporary American poetry, literary history, and narrative theory.”

One of Reed's 2022-2023 Strategic Priorities is to "[c]reate equitable systems that promote academic equity and student success for BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color] and historically marginalized students both inside and outside of the classroom."

The Center for Teaching and Learning provides "Antiracist Pedagogy Resources for Faculty" and states, "We will become better teachers – more inclusive, more transparent, more engaging, more equitable – as we deepen our engagement with anti-racist pedagogy."

As part of its commitment to DEI (updated October 30, 2024), Reed College "calls for the development of division-level administrative DEI strategic plans" which should be in "alignment with the College's overarching strategic plan and DEI priorities."

The Department of Psychology seeks to “establish anti-racism as foundational” to the department culture and understands that “racism is deeply embedded in the structures of higher education and U.S. society at large, that the field has been complicit in perpetuating racial discrimination, and that racial bias often unwittingly guides the thoughts and actions of well-intentioned individuals.”

Reed states that the purpose of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the college is to "[r]edefine issues of equity, diversity, and anti-racism as fundamental to the organizational bottom line of mission fulfillment and inclusive and intersectional excellence."

Reed's "Anti-Racism Statement" reads in part as follows: "We acknowledge the historical legacy of exclusion and marginalization in higher education. We affirm our responsibility to continuously learn about and disrupt systems of privilege, inequality, and oppression, and to reform our programs, policies, pedagogy, and practices in accordance with this responsibility."

As part of its DEI "rituals", the Office for Institutional Diversity hosts a "Community of Color Dinner" twice a year in which its "community of students, staff, and faculty of color comes together for an evening of connection and empowerment."