Dear UCSF Community,

As a leading university committed to the health sciences, we must confront the way racism perpetuates a system of inequities for people of color. False hierarchies based on race rationalize laws, public policy, and customs that have built bias and discrimination into society’s institutional practices.

Racism expressed through our social systems is often subtle and sometimes unconscious. But its impact is clearly visible across housing, education, employment, criminal justice, and health care. Nowhere are the effects of racism more obvious than in the Black community where it has led to worse health and health care outcomes, causing unnecessary suffering and shortened lives. Anti-Black racism remains the most virulent form of bias and discrimination to be overcome in this country.

In all of its forms, racism is contrary to the core values of professionalism, respect, integrity, diversity, and excellence that drive UCSF’s mission of health research, education, care delivery, and public service. To achieve a community truly defined by these values, we must take an anti-racist stance challenging systems, practices, and attitudes that maintain structural inequities against all people of color. 

The events of the past few months prompt us, as a community, to act with greater urgency. Over the past weeks, Chancellor Sam Hawgood and senior leaders have listened to faculty, learners, and staff, and have met with the Black Caucus to seek their guidance. The Chancellor’s Cabinet—led by the Chancellor and guided by Vice Chancellor Renee Navarro—has accelerated its work of reexamining UCSF’s own...