We consider this a living document that we pledge to revisit and revise regularly (annually, and with each new lab member) to ensure that our commitments remain relevant to our collective social justice efforts.
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We, the members of the Clandinin Lab, welcome everyone, and are committed to increasing equity and justice in our lab, and in STEM (see below actions). We acknowledge the severe underrepresentation of minoritized people at all levels of science, from students and postdocs to faculty, staff, and administration. We acknowledge the disproportionate burdens these groups bear on a daily basis while navigating careers in an academic system, in addition to broader society, founded upon inequality and oppression. We believe that all humans have equal value, and reject systemic oppression for any reason, including but not limited to:

• race
• gender identity
• sexual orientation
• socioeconomic background
• age
• health status
• cultural background
• nationality
• citizenship status
• ability status
• physical appearance
• religious/spiritual beliefs

We celebrate these differences and firmly believe they make our lab and science stronger, and aim to learn about the unique ways each lab member’s identities impact their experiences within the science community. We intend to keep these contexts in mind so that we can foster a safe and inclusive lab environment in which everyone feels that they belong and are able to do their best science. We recognize that changes at all levels (individual, within-lab, departmental, institutional, and societal) are required to dismantle inequity in academia. In the Clandinin lab, we openly discuss these issues. We are actively educating ourselves and each other to promote a more inclusive lab, department, and university. We pledge to do our best to hold ourselves and each other accountable to continuously build equity in STEM starting with our own workplace.

Towards this goal, we commit to the following general principles (click here for evolving specific actions):

1. We will individually acknowledge our privilege through careful reflection on our identities and positionalities in the lab, department, university, and beyond.
2. We will determine the collective lab management responsibilities that we require to run the lab effectively, and we will distribute these responsibilities in an equitable manner, according to our relative abilities and privilege.
3. We will foster equity in science, at our university, and in our lab through outreach, mentorship, advocacy, and inclusive hiring practices
4. ​We will recognize and respect the indigenous territories where our work is conducted via land acknowledgements.
5. We will treat each other with kindness, respect, and equity, and communicate inclusively and non-judgmentally.
6. We will listen when colleagues with identities different from ourselves express concerns or ask for changes, and we will ask questions in an open-minded way to understand how to best respond to those concerns or requests.
7. We will let each other know about any blind spots, tough spots, or blank spots that impede our ability to carry out these actions effectively, and we will do our best to receive this feedback with humility and gratitude.
8. We will each continuously educate ourselves on the evolving state of inequity in science and academia, its historical basis, and evidence-based practices for combating these forms of injustice.

Signed:
John Vaughen
Minseung Choi
Michelle Pang
Ashley Smart
Alex Hao
Ryan York
Tom Clandinin
Luke Brezovec
Arnaldo Carreira-Rosario
Andrew Berger
Ilana Zucker-Scharff
Max Turner
Kevin Mann
​Avery Krieger
​Sharon Su
​Jesse Isaacman-Beck
​Carl Wienecke
Estela Stephenson