Letter From the Editor
For four years now, The Heights has upheld a commitment to transparency by publishing a diversity audit to display how accurately our board of editors represents the community it serves.
As DEI initiatives face top-down scrutiny and uncertainty across the country, they remain a key focus of our work at The Heights. We are an organization committed to telling the stories of Boston College and beyond—the lived experiences of each member on our board will always be a relevant factor in our ability to do so.
In our past three diversity audits, the percentage of board members who identify as LGBTQ+ has consistently grown. This year, however, the tides changed slightly. Seventeen percent of members on the 107th board identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, or another non-heterosexual identity, down 8.6 percent from board 106. Despite this dip, our proportion of LGBTQ+ members is on par with the national percentage of LGBTQ+ students in higher education.
While the majority hold of Democrats on our board grew this semester, we nonetheless expanded in political diversity—members of board 107 identify as Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians, and other affiliations.
Though our board continues to fall short of representing the racial and ethnic diversity of BC, this year marked a positive swing toward improvement. Board 107 is less racially homogenous than board 106 and inclusive of more racial and ethnic identities than board 105. While there remains ample room for progress in this category, the small improvement is nonetheless affirmative of our ongoing recruitment efforts.
To further our efforts to monitor and advance our diversity as an organization, The Heights added new demographic questions to this year’s diversity audit, surveying whether board members attended a public or private high school, whether or not members identify as having a disability, and whether or not members identify as multiracial.
Last year, The Heights introduced our inaugural DEI coordinator, a position created to facilitate the growth and development of DEI initiatives for our organization. After careful deliberation, the steering committee of board 106 decided to terminate the position of DEI coordinator in favor of incorporating DEI initiatives into the role of outreach coordinator and throughout the rest of our organization.
Conversations about diversity, equity, and inclusion remain ongoing, though they are no longer the responsibility of a single board member—telling stories that reflect the experiences of all BC students and making our organization a welcoming environment is a shared responsibility. It is our hope that this integrative approach will lead to stronger outcomes on our DEI initiatives.
If you have any questions or comments on this work, contact me at will.martino@bcheights.com.
Sincerely,
Will Martino
Editor-in-Chief
The Heights is committed to increasing the diversity of our staff and our reporting. If you have any suggestions for our improvement in this area, please share them with us using this form.
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