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We Commit To

Prominently display our Inclusivity and Anti-Racism Statement in the lobby and our classrooms.

Prioritize funding and resources to identify and deconstruct areas in our culture, programming, and communications that contribute to systemic racism, discrimination, and inequity within our organization.

Improve and expand support structures, as well as creating new initiatives and programs, that empower historically oppressed and marginalized peoples

Examine and develop equity at a systemic and institutional level including operations, policies, programs, employment practices, financial aid, and tuition structures.

Diversify the Board of Directors.

The Board of Directors additionally commits to ongoing training in justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism work.

Develop a specific plan to provide expanded equitable access to our programming.

Create a specific plan to support community members so that everyone can participate fully in all aspects of the Hopkinton Center for the Arts.

Create a safe space for students to process and respond to experiences of racism and inequity in our programs and the greater community.

Establish comprehensive anti-racism strategies and procedures, including faculty and staff training, to help prevent and respond to issues of racism and discrimination in the community.

Engage all members of the Hopkinton Center for the Arts community—leadership, Board, faculty, staff, students, families— to continuously build the tools and skills needed to actively engage in conversations about privilege, anti-racism, diversity, and anti-bigotry.

Prioritize anti-racist and inclusive teachings in the classroom.

Create an inclusivity and anti-racism communications strategy and plan that includes community-wide messages to respond to racial and social inequities and incidences.

In order to hold ourselves accountable, we will undergo quarterly, formal, and thorough evaluations and climate assessments.

Broaden the HCA’s footprint to include under-served communities in MetroWest, Central Mass and Greater Boston. Bridge the divide for both communities and individuals who do not feel included.

We will no longer accept simply being “politically correct.” We promote the larger vision that we are global citizens in a global community of human beings.

We acknowledge that systemic injustice has/is occurring, and we will stop at nothing to promote equity and inclusion.

We seek to unite our community, build deep and meaningful relationships, listen to each other, abolish power structures that perpetuate racism, inequity, and oppression and be as ONE.

Code of Conduct

The Hopkinton Center for the Arts is committed to fostering an environment that is free of racism, discrimination, and harassment. 

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All individuals are treated with respect and dignity, contribute fully, and have equal opportunities.

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All persons working or associating with our community of The Hopkinton Center for the Arts are expected to uphold and abide by this Code of Conduct.

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You will refrain from any form of harassment, bullying, or discrimination, and cooperate fully in any investigation of a harassment or discrimination complaint.

  • We treat each other with kindness

  • We share goals and ideals across the entire organization

  • We make time and space for the entire organization to celebrate each other

  • We take time to get to know each other as individuals across the organization

  • We continually look for ways we can connect better

  • We seek a “Safe-r” space for you to come as you are. We will stop and listen and learn if it ever becomes un-safe

Behavior Commitment–We serve each other

  • We believe that everyone’s ideas have value. We set goals as a team

  • We take calculated risks as a team to achieve our goals. We have open and frank discussions with each other

  • We make room for people to respectfully disagree without fear of reprisal

  • We ask for help when needed and step up to give help when requested

  • We come together when one of us struggles or makes a mistake. We then learn and strengthen the organization

Behavior Commitment–We work as a team

  • Epithets, remarks, jokes or innuendos, hostile or intimidating actions or remarks

  • Race, religious, gender-related, or sexual-orientation-related comments about a person’s physical characteristics or mannerisms

  • Paternalism based on race, religion, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation which undermines a person’s self-respect or position of responsibility

  • Suggestive or offensive remarks or innuendoes about members of a specific gender or sexual-orientation, race, or religion

  • Race, religious, gender-related, or sexual-orientation-related verbal abuse, threats or taunting

  • Offensive jokes or comments of a sexual nature

  • Rough and vulgar humor or language related to race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation

  • Spreading malicious rumors, gossip, or innuendo

  • Excluding or isolating someone socially

  • Intimidating a person

  • Undermining or deliberately impeding a person's work

  • Withholding necessary information or purposefully giving the wrong information

  • Assigning unreasonable duties or workload which are unfavorable to one person (in a way that creates unnecessary pressure)

  • Yelling or using profanity

  • Belittling a person's opinions

Zero Tolerance Policy

The Hopkinton Center for the Arts explicitly affirms our identity as an inclusive and anti-racist arts and educational institution. We condemn racism, discrimination, inequity, and bigotry in all forms. This work is on-going and evolving. 

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We commit to hold ourselves to a standard of behavior that elevates and celebrates all cultures and identities in a respectful, inclusive, and equitable manner.

  • We pledge a never-ending commitment to creating and nurturing a community that, in its composition, undermines the institutional and societal structures of inequity. 

  • These inequities have long been expressed through white supremacy including: the ongoing oppression of groups not defined as white, racist violence, bigotry, homophobia, and gender identity discrimination.

We recognize that racism and bigotry is systemic and prevalent in our society and our organization is no exception. 

  • We know racism and bigotry can be unconscious or unintentional, and that identifying racism and enduring bigotry as issues does not automatically mean those involved in the act are racist or intend a negative impact.

  • We must identify and own the effects that racism, sexism, discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, and other forms of discrimination have had on individuals in our community to determine what we own and owe to those who have been harmed by us.

As artists, we celebrate human diversity. 

  • We acknowledge that racist and elitist assumptions, perspectives, and results are deeply embedded in Eurocentric works. 

  • We are striving to overcome this foundational history so that we may become the artists of humankind by humankind. This includes celebrating and honoring artists and actors of all races, religions, sexual orientations, gender identities, ages, and socio-economic classes. 

We commit to creating a safe space in which to explore the arts, find one’s voice and celebrate what is special in each and every individual within our community.

  • Our work to consistently identify, own and dismantle racism, bigotry and inequity requires a sustained systemic and systematic approach to educate ourselves and our community while examining organizational structures, policy, practice, and attitudes for real intended and unintended outcomes.

We are fully committed to both understanding the historical beginnings of racism and inequity, and to challenging those enduring legacies while seeking social justice in the present.

  • Positive change does not come without awareness, introspection, action and self-critique, and we pledge to continue to address and correct our own disciplinary and institutional legacies, practices, and unconscious biases that perpetuate white supremacy.

We understand and embrace our responsibility as a privileged community in dismantling systems of oppression.

  • We have much work ahead of us in the areas of anti-racism, anti-discrimination and anti-bigotry and the promotion of equity, diversity, inclusion, and social justice. 

Our Identity

Inclusivity and

Anti-Racism 

Statement

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