The Right Way to Engage with Your Institutional Heritage

Faced with increasing pressure from students, alumni, faculty, and staff, colleges and universities must fully engage with their institutional heritage—a process through which institutions acknowledge and redress their role in certain populations’ historical and ongoing oppression. In addition to redressing past harms, confronting historical legacies of oppression builds a stronger foundation for all diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice efforts moving forward.

Despite a foundation of work, however, there is no clear roadmap to contextualizing and implementing change based on historical legacies. To help, EAB has developed this guide to assist colleges and universities in their efforts toward institutional reckoning and healing.