To the Deans of Yale School of Management:

We write to you today, as alumni of the Yale School of Management, during a pivotal moment in history, when the sadness and outrage felt in the aftermath of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, and many others at the hands of the police are sparking people and organizations in this country to make a change. As we look for ways to truly work towards equity in this country, many of us look to the institutions and communities in which we are a part to ensure that Black Americans are given equitable access and supported.

Yale SOM’s mission is to educate leaders for business and society. This mission has allowed SOM to build a purpose-driven brand that differentiates it from its peer schools. You have taught us to lead ethically, to question the status quo, to think communally in order to achieve maximum good for all people and for that, we are grateful. As such, SOM should be the natural leader in taking actions that make receiving an MBA from Yale an opportunity equally attainable for all, regardless of the color of their skin. To quote the Yale DEI Report , we insist that SOM fight for a more equitable environment, both internally and in the greater New Haven community, because “we passionately believe in what Yale can achieve if it dedicates resources and energy to the values and communities it has long championed.”

We, the alumni of this institution, wish to underscore how far SOM is currently from being truly equitable and diverse. There is a clear lack of representation throughout the faculty, student body and curriculum. Not only does this leave US underrepresented minorities (US URMs) feeling woefully unrepresented by their faculty, it creates a working atmosphere where white and International students remain unexposed to the perspective of US URMs and unprepared to navigate the challenges of the modern workplace. SOM is responsible for ensuring that students are trained to be leaders who understand the impact of both historic and present-day racial inequality on business and society. This responsibility encapsulates the need for diversity across the faculty, the student body, and the curriculum, because representation matters, because equity matters, because justice matters.

To quote Dean Charles’s email to the school “On Recent Events,” “This repeating cycle of societal pain must end, and I have every confidence that we will do our part to bring that about.” We are writing to you to give the SOM administration the opportunity to truly stand with this statement by implementing the below specific and tangible solutions. By doing so, Yale SOM can bring its vision to fruition. While these efforts alone will not change the injustices faced by the Black community, they are steps to help dismantle the systemic racism present in our society today.

Reflecting the concerns above, we offer the set of solutions below and ask that SOM take immediate steps towards achieving the following short-term (by the 2020-2021 school year) and long-term (by the 2025-2026 school year) goals. Please note that this list is not meant to be an exhaustive list of everything that needs to be done to make SOM an inclusive environment, but rather a thoughtful, intentional list of where SOM can start. SOM should advocate with Yale University and the City of New Haven to address Yale’s responsibility to uplift the broader Yale and greater New Haven community.

Immediate Implementation (to be achieved by the 2020-2021 school year):

• Mandate anti-racism training (separate from the unconscious bias “training” currently in place at new student orientation) for every incoming student, faculty, staff, and campus safety officer

• Create a student council that includes representation from the Black student community to provide the administration guidance on messaging and programming for issues impacting communities of color

• Incorporate the HBS case titled “African American inequality in the United States” into the core curriculum

• Make the demographic data of cases a required section in the course syllabi

• Create a scholarship fund specifically for Black Americans and add a drop-down option specifying this fund as a donation option to all donation request forms

• Hold firms accountable to equitable recruitment and diversity and inclusion standards by requesting a summary of firm policies on such matters

• Make clear that diversity recruiting events are exempt from the current recruiting policy limiting companies to only 4 event per year on all recruiting communications including the recruiting policies website: https://som.yale.edu/community/recruiting/recruiting-policies

Long-Term Commitment (to be achieved by the 2025-2026 school year):

• Increase the enrollment of Black American students in the full time MBA program to be representative of the percentage of the United States population based on the most recent census report

• Double the number of Black American ladder (tenure-track) faculty at SOM

• Create and execute a plan to triple the number of protagonists of color in our core curriculum cases (currently, only 3 of 56 core case protagonists are identifiable as people of color)

• Hold firms accountable to equitable recruitment and diversity and inclusion standards by requiring firms share their firm demographics excluding field/retail store level employees & customer service prior to hosting any on-campus events

• Develop strong partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to promote the Yale SOM MBA program

• Update internal job descriptions and performance reviews to hold all leadership and senior staff accountable on delivering such changes

Yale SOM has the opportunity to truly put its mission into action and cultivate a community and curriculum that not only prevents further harm inflicted on Black people, but also produces leaders that actively work to dismantle systems of white supremacy in our world. We recognize that Black Americans are not the only marginalized and oppressed people, but it is what we’re talking about right now. Ultimately, we seek equity for all US URMs. The existence of structures of racialized bias and power that give rise to injustice is an issue that plagues society. Yale SOM is no exception. As you said in your letter, we must work to find solutions to eradicate such structures. We have done some of that work for you and look forward to engaging further with the administration on implementing the solutions listed above as well as any other programs aimed at affirming that Black lives matter at SOM.

Sincerely,

The undersigned current and future Yale School of Management alumni