Department Anti-Racism Statement

We, the UC San Diego Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, embrace our opportunity and responsibility to be an anti-racist academic community whose culture values diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice. We hereby acknowledge and recognize the following:

• Race does not represent biologic variation among humans – rather race is socially constructed.
• Racism, not race, impacts health care, health, and health outcomes.
• Acts of racism are present, persistent, and pervasive in our country.
• Interpersonal, systemic, and institutional racism, through acts of omission or commission, exists in our health care institutions.
• Racism has a harmful effect on trainees, faculty, staff, patients, and communities.
• Foundational knowledge in our specialty emanated in part from inhumane experimentation against Black women.

For these reasons, we make the following commitments to our colleagues, our patients and their families, our learners and trainees, and stakeholders:

• We will not tolerate racism, in our clinical spaces, in our learning spaces, in our research spaces, or our administrative spaces.
• We commit to examining and correcting our own individual unconscious and conscious bias related to racism.
• We commit to creating and adopting policies and practices that improve outcomes and eliminate healthcare inequities.
• We commit to intentional anti-racist actions across our department, health system, and community. These actions include:
  • Ensuring high visibility of our department anti-racism statement.
  • Elevating antiracist training through Culture and Justice Grand Rounds, required implicit bias training, and trainee and faculty curricula.
  • Ensuring accountability through regular quantitative and qualitative assessment of anti-racism culture, including update of the department journey map.
  • Establishing and evaluating a timeline for planned anti-racism activities.
  • Financially supporting the Culture and Justice Quorum and its mission areas.
  • Creating and utilizing a micro-reporting system for ongoing accountability of equity and justice.
• We commit to speaking out when we recognize racist incidents.
• We commit to challenging norms that marginalize or prevent our colleagues from advancing wholly in their training and careers.
• We commit to encouraging research collaborations focused on addressing health inequities.
• We commit to being an ally for justice and healing for communities we serve.
• We commit to reflecting on our growth and direction on this journey together.

We invite our colleagues across UC San Diego Health to join us in this commitment to anti-racism.