The University of New Mexico’s Division for Equity and Inclusion has a mission statement that states: “The Division for Equity and Inclusion promotes equity for all members of the University community by leading efforts and building sustainable partnerships to transform the campus environment, in addition to fostering inclusive excellence, promoting equity, and advocating social justice; and, in this way, nurture a climate that imbues diversity as an asset.”

The need for a division of equity and inclusion admits that there are inequitable practices occurring on UNM’s campus to which it intends to solve. This is evident to underrepresented students, faculty, and staff on campus through the embedded systems of hierarchy and exclusivity throughout the university. The Department of Music is in no way excluded from these inequitable practices. Every day, certain peoples and groups are affirmed of their right to be in the spaces they occupy within the Department of Music at UNM whereas other peoples and groups are not being represented within most or any of their spaces. Not only are underrepresented groups invisible within the Department of Music, but there are also others who are reluctant to understand and act on the interest of these underrepresented groups.

Education is equitable as knowledge and facts are unbiased. Rather it is the systems of education that are susceptible to bias. These systems are where inequitable practices are allowed and maintained. To be a university who claims to have a campus that “looks today, like most universities will look tomorrow”, and to have such blatant practices of exclusivity and erasure happening within programs on campus is of concern to many.

As students at the University of New Mexico, it is our right to receive education that is reflective of all people, cultures, and societies. An institution that sits on lands of Indigenous peoples should have diversity, equity, and inclusion at the forefront of its curriculum and administrative procedures. Your duty as an institution of learning is to create an educational environment that is centered on student success. By having inequitable practices on your campus, you are not providing your students with the education that all students are deserving of.

Undoubtedly, inequitable practices are occurring in other departments on campus at the University of New Mexico, and by stating the ways in which the Department of Music can be more equitable, other departments can use this as a frame for their own equity procedures:

1.     The curriculum taught in every classroom should be representative of teachings and history of all groups and peoples within the field.

2.     The repertoire programmed for any performance medium should reflect all students and cultures represented on campus at UNM and within music history as a whole.

3.     The procedures and policies of the Department of Music should be intentional in the ways that it provides for its students, faculty, and staff by making sure that every person or group within the department feels seen, heard, and feels as if they belong.

Only with these changes will the Department of Music at the University of New Mexico be truly equitable for all.