LSA DEI and Anti-Racism Initiatives

LSA Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiative

LSA’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI):

“We are committed to making LSA an inclusive, equitable, and collaborative space to learn, teach, work, discover, and thrive together. Enhancing and embracing our differences is essential to achieving our shared goals of producing groundbreaking research, providing a world-class liberal arts education, and making a positive impact on our diverse society.”
–Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion | U-M College of LSA

In line with the University of Michigan’s DEI strategic plan, LSA created its own strategic plan for the college. You can read more about LSA’s DEI strategic plan and its progress by visiting this page.

DEI and Anti-Racism

It is important to note that DEI work and anti-racism work are not the same but should very much be linked together when seeking racial equity and justice. DEI work and initiatives can focus on generalized representation and climate issues while not fully interrogating the root causes of inequity and racism that are embedded in these issues. When DEI strategic plans do not include actions for structural or systemic change, they are stopping short of working toward true racial equity as they are not disrupting the status quo. Incorporating an anti-racism framework into DEI initiatives and strategies is essential as interventions and solutions go from solely focusing on the intra/interpersonal processes (implicit bias, individual cultural awareness) to putting additional emphasis on the systemic and institutional processes (hiring, admissions, promotions, awards, and advancement)(LSA Anti-Racism Task Force Report, p. 6). As expressed in the LSA Anti-Racism Task Force report: “Effective and authentic diversity, equity, and inclusion work must include and cannot be disconnected from anti-racism efforts, which require a focus on racial equity and justice. Anti-racism should be embedded in the work of DEI; and DEI work is insufficient and frequently ineffective without an explicit commitment to anti-racism” (LSA Anti-Racism Task Force Report, p. 6). In its report, the LSA Anti-Racism Task Force calls on LSA to embed an anti-racism framework into its DEI goals and strategic planning.

Read LSA Dean Anne Curzan’s message about LSA’s commitment to anti-racism: Dean Anne Curzan – Standing Together | U-M LSA

LSA Initiatives

The following are distinct LSA initiatives that strive to create equitable and anti-racist spaces on and off campus.

LSA Anti-Racism Task Force

Composed of LSA faculty, staff, and students of varying disciplines/fields and demographic backgrounds, the LSA Anti-Racism Task Force first convened in September 2020. LSA Dean Anne Curzan charged the group to:

Provide a statement of vision and goals for anti-racism in teaching, research/scholarship, and service/engagement in LSA.
Identify institutional policies, programs, and practices in the college (and university, as relevant) that sustain systemic racism and that must be investigated, revised, and/or overturned.
Identify current policies, practices, programs, and positions that contribute to eliminating racism and racial inequities and that merit additional investment to meet these goals.
Outline recommendations to inform LSA leadership in decisions for developing infrastructures, strategies, and other action steps to advance anti-racism as a core value in LSA work, in the short-term and longer-term.

Intending to provide a transformative framework and set of priorities for LSA, the task force recognized that their work and final report were initial steps in dismantling systemic racism at U-M. Within the report, the task force focused on distinct topic areas while acknowledging that the issues presented in each topic are interconnected i.e., efforts to retain undergraduates cannot be disconnected from efforts to retain graduates, faculty, and staff. The task force report focused on: 1) Undergraduate Enrollment and Retention; 2) Graduate Enrollment and Retention; 3) Faculty Diversity; 4) Staff Diversity; 5) Curriculum – Race and Ethnicity Requirement and Beyond; 6) College & Campus Climate; 7) Dismantling Carceral Practices and Policies; 8) U-M’s Role in Urban and Tribal Communities in Michigan; and 9) Anti-racism and Responses to COVID-19. Ultimately, the task force developed 13 key and cross-cutting recommendations for an anti-racist LSA and University of Michigan.

Carceral State Project

Founded in 2016, “the Carceral State Project is an interdisciplinary collaboration that brings impacted communities and advocacy organizations together with researchers, writers, and artists from the University of Michigan to address the current crisis as well as collateral consequences of mass incarceration, policing, and immigration detention in the state of Michigan and to work toward more just responses to the safety concerns and social needs of this region.” In 2019, the Carceral State Project launched the Documenting Criminalization and Confinement (DCC) research initiative. The DCC focuses on chronicling and challenging “the policies and discourses that have propelled criminalization and incarceration, especially in racially and economically vulnerable communities, and to document diverse forms of resistance to the carceral state.”

Combined, the Carceral State Project and DCC focus on the following campaigns:

Race and Ethnicity Requirement

The LSA Race and Ethnicity (R&E) requirement can trace its origins back to the Black Action Movement (BAM) III in 1987. That year, students in the United Coalition Against Racism (UCAR) put together 12 demands to address racism and inequity on U-M’s campus. Among these demands was the establishment of a mandatory course on race, ethnicity, and racism for U-M students. From the initial demand to its implementation, there were many differing opinions among faculty, students, and students’ parents on whether such a course should be required. Three years after UCAR made its demand, LSA faculty members voted 139-90 on October 8, 1990 to approve the proposal, creating University Course 299, “Race, Racism and Ethnicity.” Note: You will need to have U-M login credentials to access the link in this section.

Today, students in LSA can choose from a variety of courses to meet the R&E requirement. In order to meet the requirement, the course must satisfy the following requirements:

All courses must provide discussion concerning:
- The meaning of race, ethnicity, and racism;
- Racial and ethnic intolerance and resulting inequality as it occurs in the United States or elsewhere;
- Comparisons of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, social class, or gender.
All courses must devote substantial, but not necessarily exclusive, attention to the required content.

Program on Intergroup Relations

A partnership between Student Life and LSA, the Program on Intergroup Relations (IGR) mission is to “help students, and those who work with them, pursue social justice through education engagement, practice, and pedagogy.” Watch this video to learn more about IGR: What is IGR?

IGR’s core work involves:

Offering courses for students that are interested in social diversity and social justice
Workshops to raise awareness and learn about social identities (race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc.), prejudice, stereotyping, power, privilege, and oppression
Facilitating the Summer Youth Dialogues on Race and Ethnicity in metropolitan Detroit
The National Institute on Intergroup Dialogue, which provides an annual opportunity for other institutions and professionals to learn about IGR’s philosophy and model so they can be adapted on home campuses
Conduct research to assess program outcomes with the aim of answering questions about what students gain from intergroup dialogue participation and how the pedagogy influences these outcomes.

National Center for Institutional Diversity

The LSA National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID)’s mission: “To create a more equitable and inclusive society, we produce, catalyze, and elevate diversity research and scholarship. In this pursuit, we also build intergenerational communities of scholars and leaders to integrate these evidence-based approaches in addressing contemporary issues in a diverse society.” NCID engages in research & scholarship, provides funding and engagement opportunities, administers fellowships and awards, and manages three publications: Spark, an online magazine, Currents, a scholarship-to-practice journal, and Shades (forthcoming).

NCID is also home to the Anti-Racism Collaborative which is “a strategic space created to facilitate University of Michigan community engagement around research and scholarship focused on racial inequality, racial justice, and anti-racist praxis. The Collaborative offers events, activities, seminars, symposia, research and professional development opportunities, and different engagement opportunities for U-M faculty, students, and staff.

Past events have included:

Black College Student Mental Health: What Institutions Need to Know and Do to Support Healing and Thriving in a Time of Racial Crisis
Asian American Voter Engagement: Mobilization, Organization, and “Doing Politics” in 2020
Making a Movement: Coalition Building, Capitalism, and How History Can Inform the Activism of Today

LSA Center for Social Solutions

The Center for Social Solutions promotes academic research and social policy that serves the common good in four program areas. Recognizing that these seemingly disparate areas are connected and share common threads, the Center recognizes that addressing one issue impacts the others as well.

The Center’s mission is to “cultivate collaboration, leadership, and scholarship in order to create a more equitable and inclusive world. We seek to identify, develop, and implement scalable, data-driven solutions that address societal inequities. In this spirit, our four founding initiatives—diversity and democracy, the impact of slavery, water security, and the future of work—aim to redress systemic injustices through interdisciplinary research and educational outreach.

LSA Semester in Detroit

The LSA Semester in Detroit initiative was created by four U-M undergraduate students who saw the Semester in Washington program and asked, “Why not have a Semester in Detroit?” The inaugural semester took place in Winter 2009 with 14 participants. Since then the program has had over 300 students and has developed partnerships with over 60 non-profit organizations in Detroit.

The initiative is not just an opportunity for students to take courses in Detroit. As the mission states, “The Semester in Detroit mission is to engage U-M undergraduates in substantive, sustained and reciprocal relationships with the people and communities of the City of Detroit. Combining a semester-long residence in the city with rigorous academic study and a comprehensive community-based internship, SiD students become deeply involved in – and committed to – the life, challenges, and promise of this important American city.”

See a list of the different Detroit-based organizations SiD partners with: Internship Categories | U-M LSA Semester In Detroit