Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion,
Social Justice, & Anti-Racism Statement

Updated April 2026

Land Acknowledgement

We acknowledge that Indigenous peoples and nations, including the ᎠᎳᎫᏪᏘᏱ Tsalaguwetiyi (Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation), have stewarded the lands and waterways on which the Chestnut School is located, in what is now known as Western North Carolina, for generations. We acknowledge that colonization is an ongoing process, and that these lands are still occupied due to broken treaties and the forceful removal of many members of the Cherokee Nation. If you are living on colonized or occupied land, we invite you to research the history of the land and the Indigenous people who lived, or may still live, there. Some tools that helped us create this land acknowledgment are the Native Land Map and the Honor Native Land Guide.

All Are Welcome at the Chestnut School

At the Chestnut School, we welcome individuals from all races, nationalities, socioeconomic backgrounds, ages, abilities, sexual orientations, and gender identities, as well as diverse cultural, political, religious, and other affiliations. We are committed to fostering an inclusive and safe educational environment through open communication, humility (a willingness to listen and learn from our mistakes), and mutual respect for different beliefs and backgrounds. Sharing the same beliefs as your fellow students is not a requirement to study with us, but treating everyone with dignity and respect is essential.

View our accessibility policy.

Our primary mission is to educate people about holistic healing, which includes understanding the social and structural factors that impact health, safety, and freedom. If an individual does not feel safe or encounters discrimination—whether due to their race, religion, age, ability, sexual orientation, or gender identity—their health will be negatively affected.

We believe that humility, openness, listening, learning, and compassion should guide our efforts. We are not sharing this work publicly to gain social capital; rather, we aim to be transparent to provide our students and community with insight into our values and stance. We strive to avoid mere optics or tokenism and instead embody our commitment to equity and social justice.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Social Justice, and Anti-Racism

We realize that we have a long way to go within our organization and that we’ll always be learning and growing (often through our mistakes). Since 2021, we have intentionally increased diversity among the school’s staff, contractors, instructors, student body, and writers to become a more equitable and inclusive business and to make all of our spaces more welcoming for herbalists of all backgrounds. Representation, resonance, and affinity are essential to inclusive learning and professional development. In the last five years, we overhauled our curriculum to include lessons on identity, health disparities, and medical bias. The teachers for this curriculum are almost exclusively BIPOC and LGBTQIA.

Learn more about our team, instructors, and writers. The foundation for creating these changes and connections is the internal work we are doing as individuals and as an organization to root out racism, white supremacy culture, sexism, ageism, ableism, and all other biases within ourselves and the school and create the cultural changes needed to address inequities.

To that end, we sought out education from the BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ herbal communities. In 2020, our team took the Woke Without the Work workshop, the Whiteness at Work course, and our leadership team took the Diversity is an Asset course. In 2021, our student services team and members of the Leadership Team participated in the Tracc4Movements Movement Trauma Healer Training Program and in training tailored to our organization’s needs.

In 2021, we removed all gendered and heteronormative language from our written course content. We also updated our course materials to minimize fatphobia and harmful diet culture attitudes. We also conducted listening sessions with our BIPOC and LGBTQ+ students to better meet their needs and guide our programs for students moving forward. We teamed up with Racial Equity Consultants, who provided coaching and training for our staff on anti-racism and addressing white supremacy culture in the workplace. We worked with Sarah Nuñez, our then-full-time Director of Equity, Social Justice, and Community Engagement, to guide us closer to our vision.

Since 2016, we’ve been offering scholarships for herbal enthusiasts (including BIPOC and LGBTQ+ folks) who face barriers due to discrimination and unbalanced social structures – parameters such as race, class, ability, sexual orientation, and gender identity are considered. We’ve donated almost $950,000 through our scholarship program and partnerships with Black-led organizations focusing on food and medicine justice.

As reparations, we donate annually to BIPOC scholarship programs offered by BIPOC-owned herbal programs and conferences. During the initial period of the COVID-19 pandemic and actions against systemic racism in this nation, we’ve donated over $112,000 towards food insecurity relief efforts, racial and social justice, and legal defense organizations. These donations are part of our ongoing Herbal Partnerships and Community Giving initiatives.

The Future Vision

We will continue to diversify our curriculum by creating new programs and expanding our pool of instructors and writers. We are committed to sponsoring conferences that are organized by and for marginalized groups. In 2026, we revitalized our scholarship program, welcoming 60 new participants who will have the opportunity to move on to our flagship Online Herbal Immersion Program upon completing their initial courses.