On Thursday, March 30 at 4pm, the Center for Racial Justice invites you to attend our CRJ Visiting Fellows Spring Showcase featuring the work of our inaugural cohort of visiting fellows: sociologist and legal scholar, Dr. Atinuke (Tinu) Adediran; freelance journalist, Makeda Easter; and writer and filmmaker, Julian Brave NoiseCat. Fellows will present their racial justice catalyst projects to the U-M community, followed by remarks from U-M community members: Vikramaditya S. Khanna (U-M Law), Srimoyee Mitra (U-M Stamps), and Forrest Cox (BA '13 and U-M Ross). A post-event reception will be held in the Rebecca M. Blank Great Hall. Please register here!
Join us as we welcome Dr. Ruha Benjamin to campus to discuss her newest book, Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want. In this talk, Dr. Benjamin draws on the lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic and introduces a micro-vision of change—a way of looking at the everyday ways people are working to combat unjust systems and build alternatives to the oppressive status quo.
Join the Center for Racial Justice for a workshop on creative practices for authentic community building with Holly Bass, part of our Racial Justice in Practice workshop series. Open to U-M students, faculty, staff, and community partners. In this workshop, we will explore the differences between activism, organizing, and culture shift work. We will explore how to build authentic relationships with those most affected by potential policy changes and those in the best position to bring about legal and social change. We will also explore how creativity and joy can guide our social justice work as individuals and collectives.
Join Dr. Abdul El-Sayed - physician, epidemiologist, and newly appointed Director of the Wayne County Health, Human & Veterans Services Department, and a Ford School Towsley Policymaker in Residence - for a conversation with policymakers at the intersection of social justice and environmental concerns. Dr. El-Sayed will be joined by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and Michigan Senator Stephanie Chang (MPP/MSW '14) to reflect on their work to address environmental injustice in Michigan and beyond, and the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Join the Center for Racial Justice for a workshop on changemaking from the inside with Gabrielle Wyatt, part of our Racial Justice in Practice workshop series. Open to U-M students, faculty, staff, and community partners. In this virtual workshop, we will collectively visit frameworks and strategies for affecting change as institutional insiders. Specifically, we will discuss strategies for building and sustaining multi-generational change by exploring power, structural change, and leadership.
Join the Center for Racial Justice for a workshop on decolonizing development with Farah Mahesri, part of our Racial Justice in Practice workshop series. Open to U-M students, faculty, staff, and community partners. In this interactive 3-hour session, we will collectively explore what a decolonized space or a decolonized approach for global development actually look like. How can we structure our organizations and our programs to draw to center more liberatory practices and help us radically re-imagine global development?
Dr. Krystal Tsosie will describe community-engaged research and describe paths forward that center Indigenous people as the agents of access for their own genomic and health data. The future of Indigenous genomics is not mere inclusion but through recognition of Indigenous genomic and data sovereignty.
The Center for Racial Justice proudly welcomes Angela Harrelson to the Ford School and the University of Michigan for the Masterclass in Activism. Angela Harrelson is the aunt of George Floyd, as well as the author of Lift Your Voice.
Policy Talks @ the Ford School,
University of Michigan Martin Luther King, Jr. Symposium
The Masterclass in Activism is a Center for Racial Justice event series in which the center's director is in conversation with noted activists and thought leaders who have made significant marks on the policy landscape.
Watch Party: Weill Hall
Betty Ford Auditorium (Room 1110)
The Center for Racial Justice, Ford School, and Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity present Bianca Wilson, in conversation with Dr. Celeste Watkins-Hayes on LGBTQ rights.
Policy Talks @ the Ford School,
Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Lecture Series
Ford School Towsley Policymaker in Residence Dr. Abdul El-Sayed discusses reproductive and birth justice with Co-founder of Birth Detroit and Birth Center Equity, and former Deputy Director of the Detroit Health Department, Leseliey Welch.
The Center for Racial Justice welcomes the inaugural cohort of Visiting Fellows—Dr. Tinu Adediran, Makeda Easter, and Julian Brave NoiseCat—to the Ford School and the University of Michigan. Fellows will be in conversation with Dr. Celeste Watkins-Hayes, founding director of the Center for Racial Justice, to share more about their catalyst projects and their work within the racial justice landscape.
The University of Michigan in partnership with the Ann Arbor Branch of the NAACP will host the 2nd annual Juneteenth Symposium. The 2022 theme is "Celebrate, Educate, Inspire."
Public Policy and Institutional Discrimination Series
The series, open to U-M students, faculty, and staff, is designed to foster dialogue on important issues of U.S. public policy. Facilitated by faculty discussant Joshua Basseches, this session focuses on policy within and beyond environmental justice as it intersects with issues of social justice.
Join the Domestic Policy Corps to learn from Justice InDeed, an interdisciplinary group working to eliminate racially restrictive covenants from thousands of existing deeds across Washtenaw County.
Public Policy and Institutional Discrimination Series
The series, open to U-M students, faculty, and staff, is designed to foster dialogue on important issues of U.S. public policy. Facilitated by faculty discussant Ann Chih Lin, this session focuses on the impact of immigration reform policies as part of a larger struggle to advance racial justice.
The session features the inaugural cohort of the ARC research and community impact fellows—U-M faculty members who are engaged in cutting-edge research and scholarship on racial inequality and justice and who use a variety of community-centered approaches to affect change in multiple systems and settings.
Join us for an important discussion between University of Michigan Ford School Dean Michael Barr with Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves, to discuss his work to revive the economy while combating the racist systems embedded within it.
Public Policy and Institutional Discrimination Series,
Policy Talks @ the Ford School,
Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Lecture Series
The series is designed to foster dialogue on important issues of U.S. public policy. Faculty discussant Bill Bynum will focus on the role of policy to advance economic opportunity for disenfranchised populations.
STPP Lecture Series,
Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Lecture Series
Join us for a talk on global vaccine equity and health justice with Fatima Hassan, human rights lawyer, social justice activist, and the founder of the Health Justice Initiative in South Africa; and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Towsley Policymaker in Residence at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Lecture Series,
Policy Talks @ the Ford School
Andy Slavitt discusses the mistakes made, the larger picture of healthcare in America, and how to alleviate some of those problems, in conversation with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed.
The series, open to U-M students, faculty, and staff, is designed to foster dialogue on important issues of U.S. public policy. Facilitated by faculty discussant and Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence Abdul El-Sayed, this session focuses on health equity, why it matters, and the role of policy in creating equitable outcomes.
Dr. Jennifer Lee, an award winning author and frequent public commentator on the implications of contemporary U.S. immigration, will join Dr. Celeste-Watkins-Hayes in conversation as part of a virtual series on the historical roots and impact of race in shaping public policy.
Dr. Rucker Johnson—a labor economist who specializes in the economics of education—will join Dr. Celeste-Watkins-Hayes in conversation as part of a virtual series on the historical roots and impact of race in shaping public policy.