AGB Board of Directors’ Statement on Justice, Equity, and Inclusion and Guidance for Implementation

Many trustees equate fiduciary responsibility principally with safeguarding the financial and tangible assets of institutions. But in fact, trustees also guard and steward institutional values, mission, campus culture, and the well-being of thousands of human beings, especially students.

Our institutions must be engines of fairness, opportunity, and justice as well. As many institutions today carry out the difficult and critical work of studying their historical relationships with Indigenous, Black, Brown, LGBTQ, and many other groups too long marginalized in American society, it is painfully clear the U.S. system of higher education—both public and private nonprofit—has never been the level playing field some imagine it to be.

The AGB Board of Directors recognizes the urgency for governing boards…