June 11, 2020

The CWU Museum of Culture & Environment affirms that Black Lives Matter.  We acknowledge the systemic racism and structures of white supremacy that have built universities and museums. 

We recognize the need to move forward and to be accountable to this history. And we want to do so in ally-ship, supporting Black students and faculty.  Because museums should not speak for/over the communities whose material culture resides in their collections. Rather museums should be a forum for amplifying their voices whenever and wherever possible. 

We acknowledge that the Museum would not exist without exploitative legacies of colonialism that have resulted in collecting, displaying, and appropriating the material culture and Traditional Knowledge of peoples around the globe.  We acknowledge that the land our Museum sits upon was ceded by the Yakama in 1855—this fact must inform everything we do.

We are here to answer the call and to be held accountable to the actions outlined by Dr. Kandee Cleary, CWU’s Vice President for Inclusivity and Diversity. 

• We will collaborate with educators across CWU—from general education to the Graduate School—to provide hands-on, experiential, and collaborative programs/exhibits that promote equity, ally-ship, restorative justice and for recognizing the pervasive impacts of bias, discrimination, and  structural racism. 
• We will promote racial equity not just in programs/exhibits but across our museum—in how we care for the collections, in how we train interns, and in our strategic planning. 
• We will reach beyond the CWU campus to connect to communities that are among the most underserved populations in the country.

• We will think carefully about the work we do how it can address issues of race and inequity more directly. We will draw upon expertise among faculty, staff, and students who are experts in the field of racial equity to develop opportunities to address white fragility, white privilege and white awareness.

• We will think hard about the systems and policies we work with every day and flag those things that may have inadvertent consequences for people or, worse, latent biases.
• We will seek out the training to help us better understand our own biases and ways to better serve colleagues, students of color, and communities of color.
• We will dig deeper when we see students of color at risk, fight harder for them, and let them know it matters to us that they are part of CWU.