50 Years of Diversity and Inclusion at HMS and HSDM

To mark the anniversary of the 1969 diversity initiative that paved the way for a culture of diversity and inclusion at HMS and beyond, on October 28 2019, alumni, faculty, trainees, students, and staff participated in a day of reflection and looking to the future.

"On Thursday, April 4, 1968, upon hearing the news that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot, a small but passionate group of nine Harvard Medical School (HMS) faculty felt they had to do something to change the way the world worked. The world they knew and could influence was Harvard Medical School. By Monday of the following week, these nine faculty met with Robert Ebert, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at HMS, insisting that HMS improve its relations with the black community (Eisenberg, 1968)."

Excerpt from Thirty Years of Affirmative Action at Harvard Medical School: A Mixed Method Program Evaluation by Alane K. Shanks

Presented April 12, 2004

American Educational Research Association

"It has been 50 years since HMS increased its enrollment to accommodate unrepresented minority students. Fourteen URM students were enrolled that first year. Leon Eisenberg was a prime leader and mover in that hallmark event that has resulted in a culture of diversity and inclusion not only at HMS and its affiliated hospitals, but influenced many other medical schools and academic medical centers across the country to self-examine and accept a more diversified student body and faculty."

Ronald A. Arky

Daniel D. Federman, M.D. Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Medical Education