Our Commitment to Antiracism at Jacobs Hall

The Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation stands in solidarity with the Black community, both on campus and across the nation. We strive to make the Jacobs Institute a home for Black students, staff, and faculty, and to harness the power of design to counter racism in society at large. As an institute, we acknowledge the work that needs to continue to meet our goals of providing this inclusivity at Jacobs Hall and in our Design Innovation courses. We commit to:

• Inviting more Black designers as speakers in our most visible speaker series. Listen back to our conversation on Decolonizing Design with Dori Tunstall, the first-ever Black dean of design, as part of our Design Conversations speaker series.
• Making Jacobs Hall a more welcoming place for Black students by confronting microaggressions and dismantling obstacles to equitable access and participation. If you have feedback about your experiences, we invite you to share them with us and inform our work.
• Supporting design work that advances antiracism and rejecting design work that perpetuates white supremacy in our Design Innovation courses, through deliberate choices of design briefs and community partners.
• Maintaining transparency and ownership of where we currently fall short. We’ve recently added our community data for our DES INV courses and our Makerspace, which you can read on our About Us page.

We recognize this list is just a starting point, and are committed to the life-long work of antiracism, and fighting racism, sexism, and gender discrimination at the Jacobs Institute. We acknowledge that the history of racism in the US has led to many additional hurdles – both overt and covert – for Black students, staff, and faculty. The Jacobs Institute is committed to actively demonstrating that Black Lives Matter in our community.