Dear Members of the HMS and HSDM Community,

A week ago I sent a message calling out the insidious and injurious racism plaguing our society. The release this past Thursday of the report of our Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion was coincidental but meaningful and timely. I am in active discussions with members of my leadership team about implementing an anti-racism agenda at HMS. And tomorrow, Wed., June 10, I ask you to pause in solidarity with a nationwide STEM shutdown.

While one day will not reverse the structural racism embedded in our country, it gives us the opportunity to build on our Better Together plan and to identify specific steps we can each take to confront racism. Tomorrow and always, I want to encourage all of us, faculty, administrators, postdocs, students and staff, as well as deans—current and former—to commit to open expression and discourse about the challenges we are all confronting, while remaining sensitive to the power of words to inflict pain and perpetuate injustice. I urge you to embrace this opportunity to reflect, become better informed and plan concrete actions.

We have provided a number of anti-racism resources that may help as each of us takes on this important work. Additionally, I encourage departments, units, individuals and groups to provide one another with the important gift of time and space. Some of you may want to gather together via Zoom for group discussion and reflection. I will ask that we all, however, pause at noon and spend 8 minutes and 46 seconds in quiet reflection. While we will be apart, there will be power and community in our collective silence.

Thank you in advance for your thoughtful and constructive engagement, and for the hard work of confronting our history and our current challenges, while ensuring that we do better together in the days that lie ahead.

Sincerely,

George Q. Daley
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
Harvard University