In February 1970, U-M students operating as the Black Action Movement called a strike on classes. They interrupted lectures, banged garbage-can lids in classroom buildings, and hassled fellow students attending class. Their demand to President Robben Fleming: Increase Black enrollment from 3.4 percent to 10 percent.

Inclusive History project honors U-M’s past and opens the way to a brighter and more equitable future.

In 1945, Sarah Elizabeth Ray was denied passage on a ferry on the Detroit River because she was Black. She fought the injustice, became a civil rights activist, and her case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, her legacy is being preserved in a collection coming to the Bentley Historical Library.

The power of the narrative can be harnessed to “change perspectives, promote social progress, and particularly amplify the voices of marginalized individuals and communities,” SMTD professor Antonio Cuyler told attendees of the October ’23 DEI summit. Narrative storytelling is where CRT converges with hip-hop, he said.

A diverse educational enviroment is essential to our core mission of academic excellence.

In 1880, the parallel lives of a misguided scientist and U-M’s first Black female student revealed a contrast of white and Black, privilege and struggle, and more than anything words and actions.

U-M’s annual DEI Summit goes virtual with an arts-oriented program Oct. 26. Actor Wendell Pierce (“The Wire,” “Treme”) is a featured speaker; Pierce is participating in the Digital Artist Residency at UMS.

As civic unrest intensifies nationwide, Sellers writes: ‘How long must we wait, plan, work, march, agitate, forgive, and vote before we have a society in which all lives matter equally, regardless of race or color?’

More than 22 percent of new in-state undergraduates are from families with incomes below $65,000. Of those students, more than 88 percent are paying no tuition.