March 30, 2023

Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff,

Since my arrival at Amherst last August, and even before, I have received many questions about my commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our community—both about the progress Amherst has made toward these goals over the last decade and more, and about my own vision, values, and aspirations for how that work will continue and evolve. On each of those occasions, and in the lead-up to our current national search for a new Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer, I’ve engaged people on how Amherst is attempting to become a community that is not just demographically diverse, but one in which every member of the student body, the staff, and the faculty feels a true sense of belonging.

I’m writing today to share my thoughts on this work, and also to share an update on the far-reaching and transformational progress we've made on the College’s 2020 Anti-Racism Plan over the last year. I use the 2020 Anti-Racism Plan as a blueprint for our evolving and ongoing efforts, and I encourage you to have a look at our recent accomplishments. (The next update will be in the fall semester.)

At a time when intolerance is on the rise, the value of diversity itself is being questioned in courts and legislatures, and people’s identities and rights are being challenged and uprooted in the U.S. and globally, I want to reiterate that the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion are foundational to my vision of a liberal arts education that prepares students for a lifetime of meaningful participation and leadership in pluralist, democratic societies.

Achieving our aspirations as a leading liberal arts institution requires that we ask difficult, even uncomfortable, questions about whether we are creating an inclusive, equitable community—and that we take the serious, constructive action needed to ensure that every member of our community can experience a sense of belonging at Amherst. To do that, we must create an environment in which our complex and intersectional experiences and identities are recognized and respected so that every member of our community can fully thrive. Our progress in this has been championed and supported by the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and advanced by a long history of student activism. Ultimately, however, this critical work belongs to all of us.

As we dedicate ourselves to this forward-looking work, we must also understand and reflect on our history with honesty and intentionality, not to engage in easy moralizing, but to grasp more fully the complex present in which we live. An investigation of the racial history of Amherst College, launched as part of our Anti-Racism Plan, has been underway for over a year now, and we have learned much about the College's ties to slaveholding and the slave economy. While there is still more to be learned on this topic and on the College's involvement in racial discrimination in the many decades after the Civil War, this research is a critical step in our endeavor to repair racial harms that flow from the College’s 200-year history. I am also beginning conversations to consider our historical and current relationships with Indigenous communities in our region. I am committed to this process on all fronts and eager to connect our work with similar efforts by the Town of Amherst and other local communities.
With that in mind, I call your attention to two important upcoming events from among the many across the college engaging issues of race from a variety of perspectives: 

  • The Big Payback (tonight, 6 p.m., The Powerhouse): a documentary about the passage in Evanston, Ill., of the first-ever taxpayer-funded reparations for Black Americans (sponsored by the Town of Amherst’s African Heritage Reparations Assembly and the Association of Amherst Students)
  • Racial History in Context: Exploring Slavery and Race in the Connecticut River Valley (April 11, 7:30 p.m., Cole Assembly Hall): a panel discussion featuring presentations by Racial History of Amherst College Research Fellow Mike Jirik regarding the College’s historical ties to slaveholding and capital accumulation based on slavery, and representatives from Ancestral Bridges and Documenting the Early History of Black Lives in the Connecticut River, two local groups working on similar projects.

I sincerely hope you share my dedication—and make a personal commitment of your own—to continuing this critically important work.

Michael

Michael A. Elliott
President, Amherst College