DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION & BELONGING
Our Commitment
While actively fostering intellectual and creative exploration, innovative approaches and connections with the world, USC Thornton also recognizes it is imperative for musicians and scholars to acknowledge systemic racism and the historical exclusion of marginalized peoples in music and to do the required work of reconciliation and repair.
Our Pledge
As a school, we commit to:
- Honoring the experiences of Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Multiracial and all People of Color by creating a culture of learning, listening, & change that recognizes and then uproots all forms of exclusion & oppression.
- Preparing students to create and perform the music of the past, present, and future from a socially and politically-engaged, critically-informed, and community-driven perspective.
- Critically engaging in educating ourselves about White Privilege, White Supremacy, microaggressions, issues of cultural appropriation, and racial inequalities in both USC Thornton & global contexts.
Next Steps
Strategies we are engaged in & continue to pursue:
- Create practices, policies, and organizational changes that support and reflect the values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging.
- Consistently and sincerely acknowledge in formal meetings, public concerts, written statements, and on webpages, of the Tongva and other Indigenous Peoples, who for thousands of years stewarded the land that USC and the Thornton School of Music now occupy.
- Comprehensively examine the Thornton School curriculum from a social, racial and historical perspective with the goal of intentionally deconstructing Western cultural hegemony in all resources and materials.
- Engage with local communities by collaborating with, learning from, and sharing with the rich diversity of cultures in the neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
- Aggressively dedicate resources, including financial resources, to the ethnic and racial diversification of faculty, students, staff, and administrators.
- Include student representation and voice in continuous conversation.
- Build a LGBTQ+ affirming culture “free from sexism, misogyny, and male‐centeredness.”
- Activate and sustain mandatory anti-racist bias training for all students, faculty and staff.
- Hold ourselves – students, faculty, staff, and administrators – resolutely accountable for recognizing racist acts and attitudes, and for creating a culture that recognizes and affirms the experiences of BIPOC, gender-minority, and all other marginalized peoples.
University Resources
University resources committed to equity in our classrooms, concert halls and community.
