The Institutional Antiracism and Accountability (IARA) Project uses research to advance antiracism as a core value and institutional norm. IARA aims to move organizations from words to action to accountability by evaluating and disseminating the best evidence for achieving racial equity in the structures, policies, and practices of institutions.
Between individuals and societies are institutions that are the bedrock of civil society and bind the me and the we together. It is that work within our institutions, across every sector—private, public and nonprofit—that the IARA Project aims to address.
Featured IARA News
The Looking Back, Paying it Forward Speaker series
Join us for this year-long collaborative speaker series between IARA and the Institute of Politics (IOP) examining how reparative practices, truth commissions, and institutional reckoning with structural oppression provide ways forward for equitable change. What can be learned from national and international examples? How are leading racial justice experts addressing the current climate of attacks on justice, equity, and democracy?
Featured IARA work
Race, Research & Policy Portal
The Institutional Antiracism and Accountability (IARA) Project’s Race, Research & Policy Portal (RRAPP) is a free online resource dedicated to summarizing and promoting research publications on diversity, racial equity, and antiracist organizational change in private, public, and nonprofit firms and entities. Many of RRAPP’s resources highlight academic studies, which are often underutilized due to being hidden behind subscription paywalls. As a result, RRAPP helps changemakers learn and find the tools they need.Because teaching an honest history of the enduring legacy of anti-Black racism in America is foundational to building a more equitable society, now and in the future. Promoting “color blindness” and ignoring race, racism and stereotypes lead to increased prejudice.
What policies and practices truly spark antiracist change in organizations? The Institutional Antiracism and Accountability (IARA) Project, situated within the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard Kennedy School, is a team of academics, students, and experts dedicated to answering this question. Through rigorous evaluations of existing and ongoing structural changes, IARA shares what really works to effect antiracist change in organizations across the private, public, and non-profit sectors.
Support IARA’s vital work with a donation.
Truth and Transformation Conference 2022
The 2022 Truth and Transformation Conference was convened on October 20-21st by Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad and hosted by the Institutional Antiracism and Accountability (IARA) Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Ash Center. During this free, virtual conference, advocates, organizers, scholars, students, and community members engaged in conversations centered around the 2022 theme “Looking Back, Paying It Forward: Truth and Transformation through Historical Accountability.”
Featured IARA Work
Antiracist Interventions in Healthcare
There is a large body of research on how systemic racism drives the social determinants of health in communities of color but much less on how to solve this problem. Supported by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, IARA is studying successful interventions that improve health outcomes and foster an antiracist healthcare system.
Our Work
IARA works to promote antiracism as an institutional value, where stakeholders turn attention and resources toward developing data-driven solutions when assessing racism’s long-term effect on their institutions.
Latest IARA News
Catch up on the latest news on IARA’s work across the US and internationally.
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How to fight back against the ‘anti-woke’ movement
CNN Op-ed by Khalil Gibran Muhammad
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Power, race, and fragile democracy in Tennessee
Featuring Khalil Gibran Muhammad on NPR