The foundation for the Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Canadian Higher Education was laid in 2020 by the University of Toronto Scarborough, which convened a national dialogue among Canadian colleges, universities, and community partners. A key outcome of those dialogues was the development of a national framework of principles, actions and commitments that were formalized in the Scarborough Charter and adopted by signatory institutions in 2021.
The Scarborough Charter is more than an agreement among member institutions. It is a unifying and concrete undertaking to redress systems and structures of inequity, discrimination, marginalization, and exclusion in the Canadian higher education sector that disproportionately affect Black people in the academy and their communities.
Beginning with 40 signatories in 2021, the Scarborough Charter membership has grown to 62 institutions across Canada. In April 2025, the Scarborough Charter Inter-institutional Forum was incorporated as a legal entity under Canada’s Not-for-Profit Corporations Act, and operates out of a Secretariat that is housed at Carleton University, in Ottawa, Ontario.
Guiding principles
Signatories of the Scarborough Charter commit to redressing anti-Black racism and fostering Black inclusion in universities and colleges across Canada.
The following four overarching principles should apply to any initiative to redress anti-Black racism and foster Black inclusion in our universities and colleges, and across the sector. The principles should guide the letter and spirit of all university, college, and sector-wide policymaking and action:
Black Flourishing
Universities and colleges are central to enabling the just, fulsome realization of human potential and thriving. They play a pivotal role in redressing anti-Black racism by removing structural barriers to equity, inclusion and social justice, with full recognition of our intersectional identities, while advancing the innovative research, critical thinking and engaged dissemination of knowledge that foster substantive equality, human dignity, and sustainability.
Inclusive Excellence
Inclusive excellence embodies the recognition that not only is post-secondary education enriched by equity, diversity and inclusion; equitable inclusion is critical to excellence. Excellence encompasses the ability of universities and colleges to educate and to innovate; to be alive to complexity and proactive in the face of crisis; to foster fundamental questioning through rigorous, respectful engagements across difference; and to enable societal transformation.
Mutuality
Universities and colleges are embedded in communities locally, as well as nationally, regionally and internationally. By recognizing a responsibility to foster mutuality, universities and colleges acknowledge the multiple social relations and modes of societal action upon which universities and colleges depend and for which they are accountable. The positive, interactive relationship with Black communities entailed by mutuality includes the special role universities and colleges can assume in Black community economic development, notably as anchor institutions and local employers.
Accountability
Accountability involves a commitment both to ongoing education – including self-education – and to courageous action built on deeply consultative processes. Accountability includes acknowledging, respecting, and acting responsively in the face of Black life, in its full complexity and intersectionality. Universities and colleges must move beyond mere representation and take responsibility for supporting fulsome, transformative inclusion across university and college structures, policies and procedures. By signing the Scarborough Charter, universities and colleges commit to a process of continuous improvement through ongoing, sustained implementation of the Scarborough Charter’s principles-based commitments to action, and to be answerable for concrete outcomes, including to their respective Boards, communities and other stakeholders.
Read the Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Canadian Higher Education here.