Brown University announces $100 million plan to increase campus diversity

Brown University has unveiled a $100 million plan aimed at boosting diversity on its Rhode Island campus over the next 10 years, including doubling the number of faculty members from minority and other underrepresented populations.

The plan is spelled out in a 19-page document that Brown President Christina Paxson posted on the Ivy League university's website earlier this week.

"Creating a just and inclusive campus community is key to Brown's ambitions as a university," Paxson. "Legacies of structural racism and discrimination in our society and on our campus undermine our goals of being a diverse, inclusive and academically excellent community."

The move follows a suspected assault earlier this month of a student visiting Brown for a Latino Ivy League conference by a university security officer.

It comes amid a wave of protests on U.S. college and university campuses including Yale University, the University of Missouri and Princeton University, over race issues.

The tumult is building on the Black Lives Matter movement that was sparked last year by the police killings of unarmed black men in U.S. cities including Ferguson, Missouri, Cleveland and Baltimore.

The program would provide more support for low-income undergraduates to cover costs such as travel home for family emergencies, health insurance and computers, as well as boost staffing at campus centers focused on minority, female and gay, lesbian, bisexsual and transgender students.

It also aims to double the number of faculty members from "historically underrepresented" groups, such as minorities, women and LBGT groups by adding as many as 60 new faculty members by 2025.