Wheaton College

As part of its "Ongoing Inclusion Efforts," Wheaton will "engage in a series of professional development opportunities about anti-racism in college admissions" in order to "better understand how racial bias could occur in [the] application review."

On June 29, 2023, WWU's President issued a response to the Supreme Court's affirmative action decision which reads in part as follows: "Black, Native American, Hispanic, and Asian American student enrollment has surged in the past four decades, but despite these gains, students of color remain underrepresented on campuses nationwide. This decision jeopardizes affirmative action initiatives implemented after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s to give more equal opportunities to people disadvantaged by centuries of discrimination and the legacy of slavery...While today’s Supreme Court ruling is a landmark decision, it will have little impact on Western’s ongoing efforts to create a more inclusive and diverse campus community. We remain committed to recruiting a diverse student body and workforce through outreach, networking, and marketing to ensure well-rounded pools of qualified applicants and by making standardized tests like SAT and ACT optional as part of a holistic admissions strategy that assesses each applicant’s unique experiences alongside more traditional academic measures."

Training materials for educators tell them to interrogate their position, “understand the impact of white supremacy in [their] work,” and to “employ evidence-based anti-racist pedagogy” in their work/teaching.

Wheaton's Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan recommends a "comprehensive course requirement structure in the curriculum that addresses both global and domestic diversity topics."

Wheaton's "Compass Curriculum" features concepts of "global citizenship, experiential learning, social justice, diversity and inclusion, and collaborative community."

Wheaton outlines its bias incident reporting policy and states that a bias incident is "an act, whether intentional or unintentional, consisting of conduct, speech, or expression, that is motivated by bias and personally directed against an individual or group based on perceived or actual characteristics such as race, color, mental or physical disability."

In 2021, Wheaton issued an update to its "10 Action Steps toward Racial Justice" initiative.

As part of Wheaton's 2023-2024 Course Catalog, students who major in English may take the "Literature and Diversity Concentration" which "immerses students in literature written by authors who possess knowledge and understanding unavailable to the dominant group about the marginalized groups with which the authors identify, for instance of race or ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, or disability."

As part of its "Ongoing Inclusion Efforts," Wheaton states that its "sworn" police officers "have completed their Massachusetts Police Training Committee (MPTC) eight-hour Fair and Impartial Policing training" with the goal to become "more aware of the role of bias."

College anti-racist resources page has a section encouraging faculty to “Interrogate the Content in Your Course, Advising, or Training Programs” and students to understand their white privilege.

On October 14, 2021, the Office for Institutional Equity and Belonging, and the Diversity, Equity and Access Leadership team hosted a virtual panel discussion on “Understanding Race, Racialization and Systemic Oppression in Higher Education” discussing racism and how to be an anti-racist.

Wheaton has a Solidarity Cabinet which focuses on promoting anti-racism throughout the college.

Wheaton College has a course on Critical Race Theory.

In April of 2021, Wheaton college hosted its first ever, inaugural racially segregated graduation ceremony called the “Inaugural Racialized Minority Recognition Ceremony.

On June 23, 2020, the Women's and Gender Studies Department issued a "Black Lives Matter Statement" which reads in part as follows: "The deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery...among so many others, remind us that we live in a world where systemic anti-Black racism and the legacies of slavery remain deeply entrenched. We condemn this racism and commit to doing all that we can (in our jobs at Wheaton and in our personal lives) to dismantle structural racism and the systemic violence that is rooted in white supremacy."