President's Working Group on Antiracism

The PWG regularly convened to consolidate the group’s collective understanding of anti-racism as it relates to our campus community through shared reflection of readings by Ibram X. Kendi, Sara Ahmed, and Isabel Wilkerson and discussions led by task forces on Anti-Racist Learning, Anti-Racist Policies and Practice, Academic Life, Curriculum and Pedagogy, and the Student Experience. The PWG presented its recommendations to the full College community in Spring 2021.

From the PWG’s recommendations, a College Diversity Officer was hired to lead the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Beginning June 2021, Dr. Alfredo Medina, Jr., has served as the Vice President of DEI and College Diversity Officer, a first at Bennington.

Dr. Medina appointed Xiomara Giordano, MSEd., as Director of ODEI and Deputy College Diversity Officer in 2023. Together, and with the support of President Laura Walker and faculty, staff, and student committees, they work to implement the PWG recommendations and develop a comprehensive DEI infrastructure across the campus.

Anti-Racism at Bennington

• We underscore the importance of a specifically anti-racist vision for Bennington.
• Naming our work as “anti-racism” is an acknowledgement of the power of systemic forms of racial injustice at Bennington College and in wider national, global, and historical contexts. Systemic racism so deeply structures the lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) students, staff, and faculty, that creating a culture in which each member of our community survives and thrives requires practices that are intentionally anti-racist.
• We recognize that ours is a community in which racialized trauma has been and continues to be inflicted and in which systemic, institutional, and interpersonal forms of racism remain ever-present. Choosing to orient our work in a way that is accountable to the reality of those traumatic effects is a step toward creating a truly inclusive community in line with our institutional values.
• We commit ourselves to listening to the wisdom of our own campus community, as well as the larger community of historical and contemporary thinkers, leaders, and activists dedicated to equity and social justice who have articulated a specifically anti-racist vision for the future. In particular, we commit to honoring the political thought and practice of Black, Brown, Indigenous, and women and queer-of-color feminists who have attested to the importance of grounding work for equity in an intersectional analysis of race, class, gender, and ability.