Belonging at Yale is the name for the university’s activities to enhance diversity, support equity, and promote an environment of welcome, inclusion, and respect.

These activities further a vision for the university outlined by the President’s Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging:

• Advancing Yale’s mission in vibrant community life, in which members encounter and appraise a broad array of ideas, are treated with dignity and respect, and feel welcome to make their voices heard;
• Recruiting faculty, staff, and students, and engaging alumni, who have many backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences; this diversity is key to excellence;
• Nurturing and retaining the best thinkers and practitioners by building contexts of trust and openness, in which ingenuity, creativity, and innovation can thrive; 
• Examining the gifts of membership of this community—access to treasuries of knowledge and expertise, sustained over centuries—always wrestling with the good and the bad of our histories; always seeking light and truth;
• Taking responsibility for our own learning and contributions to university life, expecting others to recognize and respect our talents and potential, and engaging in discernment and reflection, responsive to mistakes made and harms caused;
• Promoting equity and accessibility; protecting free and open expression; and preventing and responding to discrimination, coercion, intimidation, and harassment.

The university has committed to: 

• Support world-leading scholarship, research, practice, and teaching that addresses racism, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging; 
• Increase the diversity of the Yale community among senior leaders, faculty members, staff members, and students; 
• Promote equitable and accessible processes, procedures, and responses; 
• Provide professional and personal development, education, and training opportunities, embedding inclusive practices across the university community; 
• Offer acknowledgement and recognition; deepening a culture of respect; and 
• Foster good communication, transparency, and accountability practices; articulating the importance of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in fulfilling the university’s mission.

All members of the Yale community are invited to participate in this shared work of excellence and engagement.