Recent years’ events — the COVID pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and ongoing and new racial justice movements — have highlighted the need to address long-standing systems of oppression that continue to disadvantage and harm communities of color. The historical legacy and current systems of racism continue to plague and negatively impact the health and wholeness of our society, and these recent events have spurred increased awareness and commitments across organizations and institutions to adopt anti-racist strategies to dismantle oppressive and unjust systems.

Research and scholarship is one way that higher education institutions like University of Michigan (U-M) have played critical roles in informing the numerous and complex ways that racism operates in our society. This work has contributed to the development of innovative, evidence based interventions and actions to reduce and eliminate racism and its impacts — at systemic, institutional, and interpersonal levels.

This session is sponsored by the Anti-Racism Collaborative (ARC), a strategic space for engagement around anti-racism research and scholarship, and part of the provost's anti-racism initiative. 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.

Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) services will be provided.

Opening remarks: Provost Susan M. Collins
Moderator: Tabbye Chavous

Panelists: Melissa Borja (American Culture), Charles HF Davis III (Higher Education), William Lopez (Health Behavior and Health Education), Deborah Rivas-Drake (Psychology and Education), and Celeste Watkins-Hayes (Public Policy)