UC Merced

UC Merced has a virtual discussion series called "Reflecting on Anti-Racist Pedagogy" with the aim of "[exploring] the intersection between anti-racist teaching and anti-racist pedagogy."

The Inclusive Excellence Institute is a year-long, cohort-driven professional development experience centered around the tenets of equity, justice, and inclusive excellence. It draws from the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion’s Strategic Framework and seeks to "develop equity-minded practitioners" amongst UC Merced's staff and faculty.

The Division of Equity, Justice, & Inclusive Excellence offers the Diversity Awareness Certificate Program for faculty and staff in order to "ensure that employees have relevant multicultural and diversity learning opportunities to (a) increase their knowledge; (b) build their awareness; and (c) enhance their related skills and competencies."

The Office of Social Justice Initiatives & Identity Programs facilitates the 2024 Social Justice Retreat which provides "training sessions on privilege, understanding personal identities, and what all of this means in leadership."

The Human Resources Department hosts the "UC Managing Implicit Bias Series" which is "designed to increase awareness of implicit bias and reduce its impact on hiring processes at the University."

The University offered an "Introduction to Anti-Racism" for "UC employees who volunteered and received an invitation to complete training." The training was run by the Division of Equity, Justice & Inclusive Excellence.

According to the 2024-2025 Catalog, the University has a "Diversity and Identity" general education requirement. Students must complete a course to "consider how multiple kinds of difference—ethnic, racial, gender, and sexual—impact individuals and societies in the past and present."

The Office of Social Justice Initiatives & Identity Programs offers an incident reporting tool for students who "have experienced any form of harassment, hate crime(s), micro/macroaggressions, alienation or violence." The reporting system is anonymous "in order to protect those who do not wish to be identified." The reports are reviewed by the Bias Incident Response Team (BIRST).

Until March 2025, the University required faculty candidates to "submit a statement on their past contributions to diversity and/or equity and future plans for continuing this effort as part of their application for an academic appointment." The University stated, "The purpose of the statement is to identify candidates who have professional skills, experience, and/or willingness to engage in activities that would enhance campus diversity and equity efforts." The University also provided guidelines for the diversity statements.

As of March 2025, Diversity Statements are no longer a part of the hiring process. Search committees and hiring managers are also prohibited from asking about a candidate's contributions to DEI during the hiring process. However, candidates may "voluntarily highlight broad contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion in an interview or in a CV/cover letter."

The University has Faculty Equity Advisors who "work with search committees to ensure they follow recognized best practices to help develop a diverse applicant pool." The advisors "are appointed by the Senate Committee for Diversity and Equity, the school deans, and the Vice Provost for the Faculty, and undergo training to help them support their colleagues in this important task."

Hiring managers and committee chairs are required to complete "the full UC Managing Implicit Bias Series every 2 years, or prior to conducting a recruitment." Committee members are required to complete the "What is Implicit Bias" training and "Managing Implicit Bias in the Hiring Process...every 2 years, or prior to serving on a search committee."

$1,000 will be given to individuals and groups who have "dedicated their time and effort in championing equity and justice initiatives through the inclusive excellence framework" to assist with the implementation of their research/initiatives.

The Critical Race and Ethnic Studies major at the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts is an "interdisciplinary field of study that seeks to understand the ways society is culturally and institutionally constituted by ideas of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and nation." Additionally, the program "aims to scrutinize cultures of power and domination as well as highlight and imagine struggles for liberation and self-determination."

On June 14, 2023, UC Merced Newsroom reported that the "Jack Kent Cooke Foundation has established a new scholarship [$1 million] endowment to ensure that many of UC Merced's underrepresented students, particularly those from diverse socio-economic backgrounds, have access to much-needed financial resources to support them during their higher-education journeys."

According to an October 2024 article by the Calvin E. Bright Success Center, a $6.5 million grant from the NSF funded an initiative "to reduce promotion and tenure bias against black and Hispanic faculty" and  "a Center for Equity in Faculty Advancement at UC Merced."

The UC Merced Black Alliance's mission is to "promote education and engagement with Black identified individuals on and off campus." For the 2022-23 school year, the alliance hosted several events, such as the "Race and Disability Panel."

On February 24-25, 2023, UC Merced hosted its first Global Africana Studies Research Conference titled “Being and Becoming: Blackness in Multiple Contexts.” The event was co-sponsored by the Academic Senate and the UC Merced Black Alliance and the subject was on Black consciousness and African freedom.

The Division of Equity, Justice, & Inclusive Excellence provides anti-racism resources which include: "How to Be An Anti-Racist" by Ibram X. Kendi, "Stop Killing Black People: An Anti-Racist Reading List" from the English faculty at UC Merced, and "Resources to Educate Yourself on Anti-Blackness."

Following the murder of George Floyd, the VBL Task Force was created to address the UC Mercer community's petitions and demands, with representation from all stakeholder groups across its five subcommittees. UC Mercer's Valuing Black Lives Initiative (VBL) is "rooted in the acknowledgment that anti-Blackness is detrimental to our mission as a public research university, which echoes the vision of people first and anti-oppression and liberation for all in the OEDI Strategic Framework."

UC Merced's Academic Senate has a Committee for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) that acts on all matters of equality and diversity and in particular in reference to underrepresented faculty populations.

On July 1, 2022, UC Merced's Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion transitioned to the Division of Equity, Justice and Inclusive Excellence (EJIE). With regards to the name change, Vice Chancellor and Chief Diversity Officer Delia Saenz said that "diversity" isn't going anywhere. Instead, the focus is shifting toward cultivating an environment where a diverse community can thrive.

UC Merced's Diversity Statement reads in part as follows: "When we address diversity on this campus, we do so boldly, daring to look forward and backward, imagining diversity’s demand for the 21st century and the importance of diversity in addressing past wrongs, reaffirming humanity, and ensuring a reconciliatory path of redress for the future."

In 2024, as part of the Office of Social Justice Initiatives & Identity Programs, UC Merced offers optional "Cultural Graduations" for Asian and Pacific Islander, "Lavender," "Afropolitan," and "Latinx" students. The office states, "These are congratulatory celebrations of the students' achievement and the step forward it means for them, their parents, their culture, and their lives." These special graduation ceremonies take place "sometime before the Official UC Merced Commencement."

The Division of External Relations & Strategic Communications states that it places "the values of equity, justice and inclusivity at the forefront of everything [it does], and [seeks] to advance diversity and inclusive excellence across the campus through each of the aforementioned areas of work."

The Sustainability Offices and Staff are "committed to ensuring that UC sustainability programs are diverse in their staff, and representative and inclusive of the communities who are engaged in these programs." The office states it "will work to directly address racism and all forms of discrimination."