University of South Carolina

The university announced, "To this end, we are assembling a team to work on the implementation of a new diversity module that will be required of all UofSC freshmen as part of their orientation process beginning in the 2020-2021 academic year."

On July 9, 2020, University of South Carolina announced that, “The Office of the Vice President for Research, working in collaboration with the Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, is proud to launch the new Racial Justice and Equity Research Fund to support research that centers on race, racial justice and racial equity through ASPIRE Program funds.” The funding program consists of $10,000 and $15,000 awards given out on a rolling basis.

The School of the Earth, Ocean and Environment offers several scholarship programs for “students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds.”

The university hosted an event called "Discussing Antiracism in University 101," which discusses how to "effectively facilitate conversations about antiracism."

The university recently appointed Julian Williams as the "first vice president for diversity, equity and inclusion."

University of South Carolina’s College of Arts and Sciences has a page dedicated to providing resources including “A Practitioner's Guide for Promoting Race Equity and Inclusion in the Workplace” and “What Would it Take to Overcome the Damaging Effects of Structural Racism and Ensure a More Equitable Future?”

The College of Arts and Sciences has a web page devoted to providing a list of “race and reconciliation organizations in South Carolina organized by type.”

The Office of Multicultural Student Affairs has a site dedicated towards providing “a list of resources to encourage you to continue learning about diversity, equity, and inclusion” which includes an “Anti-Racism Training” among many other resources.

The university president announced, "Today I endorsed and moved forward to the Board of Trustees a resolution from the Presidential Commission on University History to rename the J. Marion Sims residence hall on the Women’s Quad at the University of South Carolina." The name removal requires a 2/3 vote of the state legislature.

The College of Arts and Sciences Collaborative on Race seeks to “foster courageous conversations that are people focused to build a systemic response to injustice” through several programs.

The College of Arts and Sciences hosts a program known as the Welcome Table SC, which incorporates sessions and dialogues that work to “bridge the divide between racial equity and racial healing.”

The school annually hosts the Equity and Inclusion Summit within the College of Arts and Sciences. The EI Summit is a “mini-conference [which] brings together academics and activists to marry theory and action” and “creates a space for those actively engaged in race equity and inclusion efforts.”

University of South Carolina’s College of Arts and Sciences has a program known as the South Carolina Youth Collective Fellows Program which consists of “social justice and civics minded high school students from across South Carolina” who will “participate in community building exercises, learn civil rights history through activities and virtual field trips, plan to lead a workshop on race and reconciliation, and learn how to plan and implement a project in their home community.”

The College of Arts and Sciences hosts the “21 Day Equity Challenge,” which is a three week long challenge that “will offer participants the chance to deliberately focus on issues of equity on a daily basis” through promoting an “equity habit.”

The Educational Leadership and Policies Department released a statement in solidarity, stating, “We recognize that for far too long, schooling, as an institution, has promoted values that function as overt and covert forms of anti-Blackness, racism, antisemitism, paternalism, misogyny, and white supremacy. We assert our disgust with the historical murder of the Black community, and continued violence at the hands of police. We, in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policies at the University of South Carolina, reaffirm our commitment to undoing this harm, in our leadership mission to uphold the values of anti-racism, equity, and social justice.”

The School of the Earth, Ocean and Environment’s Diversity Committee consists of “faculty, students, and staff across the SEOE” who have “formed an ongoing committee to support diversity, equity, and inclusion within the school.”

The SEOE Latino and Hispanic Faculty Caucus “is an advocacy and leadership organization established April 2016 to address critical issues in higher education that focus on the recruitment, retention, promotion, and advancement of Latino/a & Hispanic faculty at the University of South Carolina.”

The school hosts an Environmental Justice Research and Outreach initiative “to plan and develop a Carolina Center for Environmental Justice.”

In Spring 2021, students, faculty, and staff formed a group known as the Unlearning Racism in Geoscience program which “developed a series of deliverables, [each] designed to initiate an anti-racist strategy and set of policies for the SEOE community.”

The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion has a program known as “Bridge to Faculty” which is “a postdoctoral program designed to recruit underrepresented early-career scholars with the goal of transitioning them to a tenure-track faculty members after two years.”

The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’s “Inclusive Excellence Education” program features “education sessions designed to help individuals and teams deepen their knowledge and understanding of leveraging diversity, equity and inclusion through education and lived experiences and applying those skills to action.”

The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion hosts the “Inclusive Excellence Institute” which is “an academic semester-long educational opportunity open to faculty and staff designed to help deepen their knowledge and understanding of leveraging diversity, equity and inclusion through education and lived experiences.”

The “Teaching Towards Inclusion Excellence (TTIE) certificate of completion program” is provided by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for “faculty, instructors and teaching graduate students.” The program “strengthens your strategic diversity leadership capabilities both within and outside the classroom.”