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Guiding Principles on Equity & Belonging


The President’s Commission on Equity and Belonging, or PCEB, came together in February 2022 with members of leadership across the university to guide the U’s short-term approaches to address harm, bias-motivated violence, and hate on campus. One result of their efforts, as led by the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion division, was establishing the University of Utah Guiding Principles on Equity and Belonging. These guiding principles are designed to call attention to the university’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion and to cultivating spaces where all students, faculty, and staff can belong and thrive.


We, the champions of the University of Utah Guiding Principles on Equity and Belonging, affirm our commitment to ensure equity, diversity, and inclusion are the foundation of the institution’s values.

We wholeheartedly believe that all students, faculty, and staff, as well as those who are part of our extended campus community deserve a fair and full opportunity to belong. We will support each other and hold ourselves accountable to a standard which mandates that equity is everyone’s work. By doing so, we will ultimately cultivate an environment where we live out the practices that inspire everyone to contribute and thrive.

Therefore, we pledge ourselves to these actions and principles:

We are boldly determined to create a campus where everyone knows their authentic self is affirmed and supported so that they may thrive at the University of Utah and beyond.

We will consistently assess university policies, programs, and practices to hold ourselves accountable to cultivating a culture that is equitable and inclusive of the diverse individuals represented throughout our community.

We will actively cultivate internal and external community connections where trust is fostered, the structural effects of injustice are uprooted, and long-term sustainable outcomes and relationships are developed to transform the future of the university. We will courageously and creatively develop institutional policies, practices, and programs that eliminate health inequities and ensure all patients and clients achieve equitable health outcomes.

We will champion equity at every turn. We will ensure our everyday actions create the momentum necessary to build a movement for justice and equity at the University of Utah and elsewhere in our nation and world.

We understand that beliefs, practices, structures, policies and systems continue to give certain groups greater opportunity to be fully human and live happier and healthier lives than others. In order to create a more just and equitable campus community, we will identify and name injustice, discrimination, and bias every time we see it, we will learn to embrace discomfort on our individual and collective journeys to become more inclusive, and we will nurture new roots within our campus structure that disrupt the status quo.