University of Central Florida

The university considered implementing a "requirement that all units and colleges demonstrate their own commitment to inclusive excellence, through dedicated resources and training."

The university also pledged to "improve our search committee trainings and education" by adding implicit bias training.

As of spring 2024, the Office of Diversity Education offers a variety of training and certificate programs.

The Ginsburg Center for Inclusion and Community Engagement Office of Diversity Education and Training at UCF offers students "the opportunity to enhance their diversity-awareness, people, and professional skills through trainings and workshops on various topics."

The Ginsburg Center for Inclusion and Community Engagement Office of Diversity Education and Training at UCF "partners with faculty and staff for diversity and inclusion workshops and events." Topics include leadership training and "faculty development of inclusive classroom practices."

The University recognizes that communities are comprised of, and enriched by, people of diverse backgrounds. The study of diversity is encouraged to promote an understanding of the needs of individuals, the University, and society. Thus, all students completing their first bachelor’s degree from UCF "must complete at least one course that explores the diverse backgrounds and characteristics found among humans, including: race/ethnicity, gender, social class/caste, religion, age, sexual orientation, and level of physical ability."

The university is "launching a comprehensive review of our reporting processes at UCF."

The university has a "Just Knights Response Team" which will act "as a clearinghouse for any bias-related incidents that may occur on UCF campuses. In this role, the JKRT will receive, monitor, refer, and, as necessary, coordinate university resources to these incidents that impact the university community."

The university launched an investigation into psychology professor Charles Negy around the time when student activists expressed anger at tweets Professor Negy made. The university asked students to submit information about "abusive or discriminatory behavior by any faculty or staff member". The university also announced it launched an inquiry into Professor Negy.

"Through the use of three policies – the University’s discriminatory harassment policy, its computer use policy, and its Just Knights Response Team (JKRT), the school’s version of a bias response team – the University of Central Florida and its administrators have created a series of rules and regulations that restrain, deter, suppress, and punish speech about the political and social issues of the day."

The university committed to "increase our institutional resources and full-time staff who are dedicated to helping deliver on these promises." The university will "...deliberately invest in equity, inclusion and diversity as a pillar of excellence."

UCF offers a Social Justice in Public Service Graduate Certificate.

The Human Communications undergraduate degree now includes a Social Innovation and Activism Track.

The College of Undergraduate Studies at UCF offers the "Diversity Studies Leadership Minor" which is an "interdisciplinary academic program intended to provide students with a foundational understanding of issues surrounding diversity and inclusion with a focus on the core themes of religion and spiritual traditions, race and ethnicities, gender and sexuality, and age and abilities."

The UCF College of Sciences Department of Sociology offers a "Diversity and Social Inequality Minor" which "examines the social class, status, and power in contemporary global society" and "facilities an understanding of social inequalities related to age, gender, race and ethnicity, social class and stratification, sexual orientation, religion, and family."

On June 14, 2023, UCF News reported that the university was awarded "$1.85 million to pilot a five-year, multidisciplinary program to increase diversity among student researchers focused on health disparities in aging." The grant is funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Aging.

Public safety officers are required to take implicit bias training after taking the Harvard Implicit Bias Test and other online trainings.

The university created the "President’s Executive Committee on equity, inclusion and diversity."

UCF Libraries provided a guide titled, "Diversity & Education: Ethnicity & Racial Resources."

A "Critical Race Writing Group" started in the Spring Semester to "provide a collaborative space for scholars interested in the study of race, particularly from a critical race theory perspective. Specifically, this group will help graduate students develop their skills in academic article writing and review processes, with the goal of finalizing a manuscript for submission to a peer-reviewed journal."

To learn more about social justice, students may take the following classes: "Race Matters: Anthropological Approach to Racism," Community Policing," and "Social Power and Inequality."

The UCF student magazine spring 2022 edition of "Imprint" published an article titled "The Importance of Teaching CRT," which states that CRT "is a way of communicating how American racism has shaped the classrooms unequally" and that "[m]any students of public education from kindergartners to college freshmen have dealt with the inequalities that racism in the United States has placed upon the education policies in this country."

On January 30, 2022, the UCF Department of English hosted an online event titled "CRT: A Critical Conversation about Race and History."

UCF has created the Hispanic Serving Institution Initiative which is "committed to serving our Hispanic/Latino/a/e/x students with intentionality...." UCF also states that it "aspires to be a leading Hispanic-Serving Institution in the nation, by embracing asset-based and culturally responsive practices that enable a meaningful collegiate experience for all of our students."

The university made the "position of chief equity, inclusion and diversity officer a vice president and, as such, a member of the president’s cabinet."

UCF President Cartwright said last June, "What is needed now is action — a commitment from our university to not merely celebrate our diversity, but to be actively anti-racist... Systemic racism, sexism, homophobia and other hateful ideologies seek to deny our shared humanity. They must be called out and confronted. They do not reflect the values of our UCF community."

In 2022, UCF's Ethics Center issued a statement in "Support of Black Lives Matter" which reads in part as follows: "We stand in solidarity with the many people across the world who are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of the lives of Black people at the hands of police and vigilantes in the US. Recent events have once again laid bare the longstanding and pervasive legacy of anti-Blackness at the heart of US white-supremacist culture....We endorse the recent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement and support the restructuring of our nation’s institutions to value, protect, and elevate the lives of Black people."