Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Events

January 19, 2018 - 11:00am to 5:00pm

Celebrate People’s History
Curated by Josh MacPhee
Exhibition Dates: January 19 - February 25, 2018

The Celebrate People’s History (CPH) posters are rooted in the do-it-yourself tradition of mass-produced and distributed political propaganda. They are detourned to embody principles of democracy, inclusion, and group participation in the writing and interpretation of history. In dark times, it’s rare that a political poster is celebratory, and when it is, it almost always focuses on a small canon of male individuals: MLK, Ghandi, Che, or Mandela. Rather than create another exclusive set of heroes, curator Josh MacPhee decided to generate a diverse set of posters that bring to life successful moments in the history of social justice struggles. To that end, MacPhee asked artists and designers to find events, groups, and people who have moved the collective struggle of humanity forward in order to create a more equitable and just world. The resulting posters tell stories from the subjective position of the artists, and are often the stories of underdogs, those written out of history. The goal of the project is not to tell a definitive history, but to suggest a new relationship to the past.

Today the CPH posters grace the walls of dorm rooms, apartments, community centers, classrooms, and city streets. 115 different designs have been printed in the past 20 years, adding up to over 300,000 total posters. Although MacPhee has organized and funded the posters himself, they have always been a collective project. Over one hundred artists and writers have created posters, multiple printshops have done the printing, dozens of people have run around at night pasting them on the street, and thousands have helped distribute them around the world.

The Celebrate People’s History Poster Series has been organized and curated by Josh MacPhee since 1998.

January 19, 2018 - 8:00am to 5:00pm

This interdisciplinary mini-conference will focus on racial inequality as it manifests in relation to the lived experiences of black Americans. Throughout the day, panelists will discuss the criminal justice system and state violence against black people, economic inequality and immobility, inequities in healthcare and education, and issues pertaining to race and the environment. Registration is required. The event is free and open to the public.

RSVP here »

January 18, 2018 - 6:00pm to 7:00pm

Drawing from her recent book, Andrea Ritchie examines how Black women, Indigenous women, and women of color experience racial profiling, police brutality, and immigration enforcement. Placing stories of individual women—such as Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, Dajerria Becton, Monica Jones, and Mya Hall—in the broader context of the twin epidemics of police violence and mass incarceration, Ritchie documents the evolution of movements centering women’s experiences of policing and demands a radical rethinking of our visions of safety and the means we devote to achieving it.

Andrea Ritchie, J.D., is a Black lesbian immigrant whose writing, litigation, and advocacy has focused on policing of women and LGBT people of color for the past two decades. She is currently Researcher in Residence on Race, Gender Sexuality and Criminal Justice at the Barnard Center for Research on Women’s Social Justice Institute, and was a 2014 Senior Soros Justice Fellow. She is the author of Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color (Beacon Press, 2017), co-author of Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women (African American Policy Forum, July 2015), and Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in the United States (Beacon Press, 2011). Andrea is also an experienced litigator, policy analyst and advocate. Follow her on Twitter: @dreanyc12

Presented with the Departments of Political Science and Women's Studies

January 18, 2018 - 5:00pm to 8:00pm

This workshop introduces principles and practices for thoughtfully engaging with communities, including motivations, impact of social identities, and strategies for engaging in reciprocal, ethical, and respectful ways. This interactive session engages participants through small and large group activities and discussion, applying principles for effective community engagement to the practice of social work. Offered by Edward Ginsberg Center staff, in partnership with the SSW Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Food will be provided.

RSVP here »

January 18, 2018 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm

Macarthur “Genius” Fellow Claudia Rankine and dramaturg P. Carl explore ways that contemporary theater and performance can catalyze and promote social justice in America. Rankine and Carl are currently collaborating on the upcoming world premiere of Rankine’s play The White Card. Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including Citizen: An American Lyric and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely; two plays, including Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue; and numerous video collaborations. She is the editor of several anthologies, including The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind. Rankine is a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and teaches at Yale University as the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry. P. Carl is the Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at Emerson College and a writer and lecturer on theater, gender, and inclusive practices. He is the former director of HowlRound Theatre Commons and the recipient of the 2017 Art of Change Fellowship from the Ford Foundation.

This Penny Stamps Speaker Series event is the keynote event for No Safety Net, a series by UMS.

Co-presented by the University Musical Society.

January 15, 2018 - 1:00pm to 3:00pm

On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the speech "Beyond Vietnam-A Time to Break Silence." Exactly one year later, he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had been supporting striking sanitation workers. The last year of King's life marked a distinctive period in his career as he allied himself with a broad array of initiatives linking civil rights with antiwar, labor, and antipoverty campaigns. This panel will consider the legacy of that year, stretching from the social justice movements of the late 1960s to causes today such as Black Lives Matter, immigrant rights, and attempts to reverse the growing gap of socioeconomic inequality.

Featuring:

Ruth Feldstein, Rutgers University-Newark

Monica Muñoz Martinez, Brown University

Brenda Tindal, Detroit Historical Society

Ruth Feldstein is professor of history and American studies at Rutgers University-Newark. She is the author of several books and articles, most recently the award-winning book, How It Feels To Be Free: Black Women Entertainers and the Civil Rights Movement; she is also associate producer of How It Feels to Be Free, a forthcoming documentary based on this book. Feldstein's scholarship explores relationships between race and gender relations, and between performance and politics; she works to tell the stories of women whose voices have not been heard, and who are seldom taken seriously as thinkers and activists.

Monica Muñoz Martinez, Carnegie Fellow 2017-2019, received her PhD in American studies from Yale University. At Brown University she offers courses in Latinx studies, immigration, histories of violence, histories of policing, and public memory in US History. Her research has been funded by the Mellon Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Recovering the US Hispanic Literary Heritage Project, the Brown University Office of Vice President of Research, and the Texas State Historical Association. Her first manuscript, The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in the Texas Borderlands, is under contract with Harvard University Press. She is a faculty fellow at the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. Martinez is the primary investigator for Mapping Violence, a digital project that documents histories of racial violence in Texas.

Public historian, archivist, curator, and educator Brenda Tindal joined the Detroit Historical Society as director of education in December 2017. She is the former staff historian and senior vice president of research and collections at Levine Museum of the New South in Charlotte, NC. In 2005, she was part of the curatorial team that developed Courage: The Carolina Story that Changed America, an exhibit on the region's role in the landmark school desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which won the National Award for Museum Service-the nation's highest honor awarded to museums and libraries. Tindal recently co-curated the museum's K(NO)W Justice K(NO)W Peace-a rapid-response exhibit that explores the historical roots of the distrust between police and community, tells the human stories beyond the headlines, and engages viewers in creating constructive solutions. Before joining the Levine Museum of the New South in 2015 as staff historian, Tindal was a visiting lecturer in the Department of History and Honors College at the University of North Carolina Charlotte, where she taught a broad range of courses in comparative U.S. and South African history, southern history, African American history, and visual and material culture. A sought after social commentator, convener, and speaker, Tindal has been featured on C-SPAN, the Knight Foundation's Media Learning Seminar, Happenings Magazine, NPR, Pride Magazine, NBC-Today, The Charlotte Observer, and many other local and national news and media outlets.

Free and open to the public.

This event made possible by the Kalt Fund for African American and African History, along with the Department of History and the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies.

January 15, 2018 - 1:00pm to 3:00pm

Dean Lynn Videka and Associate Professor Robert Ortega are panelists at the athletic department MLK Town Hall. Sociologist and civil rights activist, Dr. Harry Edwards is the keynote speaker. Edwards has a long and storied history of activism focused upon developments at the interface of sport, race, and society. He may be best known as the architect of the Black Power Salute protest by athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.

This town hall and panel discussion will focus on tangible ways in which we can move from protests to progress and how athletes can best use their platforms to help shape change.

January 15, 2018 - 10:00am to 11:30am

Keynote: Hill Harper

Award-winning actor, best-selling author and philanthropist Hill Harper will deliver the keynote address for the 2018 MLK Symposium Lecture. There will be a special guest performance by Aisha Fukushima, singer, public speaker, educator and founder of RAPtivism, a hip-hop centric project that focuses on global efforts for freedom and justice. The event is sponsored by The Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan with support from the William K. McInally Memorial Lecture Fund, and the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives, a unit under the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. For more information about the 2018 MLK Symposium, visit http://oami.umich.edu/um-mlk-symposium/.

January 11, 2018 - 4:00pm to 6:00pm

This interactive keynote lecture presents current data on the demographics of public discourse, and addresses core questions of thought leadership: what do we know, why does it matter, and how can we maximize our impact? We will also do a large-group experiment in credibility. Participants will walk away with bold ideas, a deeper sense of what they, as well as their colleagues, know and stand for, and actionable steps.

What is The OpEd Project?

The OpEd Project is a think tank and leadership organization founded to ensure the full range of human voices is included in history. OpEd accelerates the ideas and public impact of underrepresented voices, including women. One near term goal is to increase the volume of women thought leaders in key commentary forums—which are a key source of history—to a tipping point. Partnering with universities, think tanks, non-profits, and corporations, OpEd targets and trains underrepresented experts (including women) to take thought leadership positions in their fields connecting them with a network of high-level journalist mentors; and channeling the best new experts and ideas to media across all platforms. Op-ed is used (which is defined broadly, to mean an idea of public value in any media platform) as a strategic metric of concrete results.

Presented by the Institute for the Humanities, College of LSA, and the U-M ADVANCE Program.

January 8, 2018 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm

Nayanjot Lahiri, Ashoka University

India's archaeological heritage has continued to grow in many different ways since independence, even as the monuments and relics, sites and sculpture remain vulnerable and compromised. This lecture will look at the challenges and pressures on this heritage as a consequence of developments arising from the impact of accelerated industrialization and mega projects, the antiquity trade protected by mafias of various kinds, the state of government-funded institutions, and the adjudication of legal disputes relating to monuments. The lecture will also offer some possible solutions on how India's heritage can be made to matter more than it does at present.

Nayanjot Lahiri is a historian and archaeologist of ancient India and a professor of history at Ashoka University. Prof. Lahiri won the 2013 Infosys Prize in the humanities for her contribution towards the integration of archaeological knowledge with the historical understanding of India from the earliest times. She also won the 2016 John F. Richards prize for her book Ashoka in Ancient India. Her books includeThe Archaeology of India Trade Routes (1992), Finding Forgotten Cities (2005),Marshalling the Past -Ancient India and its Modern Histories (2012), Ashoka in Ancient India (2015) and Monuments Matter: India's Archaeological Heritage Since Independence (2017). She has edited The Decline and Fall of the Indus Civilization(2000) and an issue of World Archaeology entitled "The Archaeology of Hinduism" (2004).

December 15, 2017 - 10:00am to 12:00pm

If you are providing a service, it is important to know the best ways to communicate with and about individuals who may have disabilities. This session will help you to understand how to best serve individuals with disabilities, and will also give you some etiquette pointers that you can use in your everyday life. In addition, you will find useful information in this session if you are someone who needs an accommodation.

You will learn to:

Recognize the impact of language as it pertains to the topic of disability

Apply specific tips for communicating with individuals with disabilities, including individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing and individuals who are blind or have low vision

Determine when your own unintentional biases and assumptions concerning individuals with disabilities are interfering with your ability to provide quality service

Use appropriate questions in order to determine whether an individual with a disability requires assistance or an accommodation

Identify ways to better help individuals with disabilities, including those who are accompanied by service animals

Learn about providing and receiving accommodations

And more!

You will benefit by:

Recognizing how to appropriately and effectively engage with co-workers, members of the public, and others who may have a disability

Understanding how to best serve individuals with disabilities

Learning some etiquette pointers to use in your everyday life

Learn how to engage in the interactive process and request an accommodation

Presenter: Christina Kline, Disability Coordinator

December 15, 2017 - 9:00am to 10:30am

This workshop series, sponsored by Poverty Solutions, is designed to engage PhD students in an ongoing dialogue on poverty in America and to explore poverty-related research. 

12/1/17: Detroit Community-Academic Urban Research Center with director Dr. Barbara Israel and Donele Wilkins, CEO of Green Door Initiative. Topic: Community-Academic Research Partnerships

12/15/17: Professor William Elliott, School of Social Work


Interested students are invited to contact Poverty Solutions Administrative Coordinator Damien Siwik at dsiwik@umich.edu.

December 7, 2017 - 12:00pm to 2:00pm

We understand that finals are stressful. Join the DEI Office for a self-care break. Come play board games, grab a healthy snack, color, or make a wonderful stress ball companion.

December 6, 2017 - 5:00pm to 8:00pm

The School of Social Work is leading a collaborative effort to organize an alternative event if Richard Spencer comes to speak on campus. This would not be a protest or counter protest, but rather a separate event that celebrates social justice. While U-M considers his request, students, faculty and staff are mobilizing. The goal is to have a fully-formed action plan and be ready to move swiftly when more details become available.

Are you interested in helping to plan such an event and collaborate with other graduate schools on campus? Join us for an initial organizing meeting, open to all who are willing to come and share support and ideas for our community.

Dinner will be provided. 

RSVP here »

December 4, 2017 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Deepening consideration of social identity and its influences, participants spend time not only understanding how to mitigate and resolve situations that may be damaging, but also how group dynamics may create preference for some identities over others, as well as engaging in thinking on how to reduce these effects. In collaboration with The Program on Intergroup Relations.

Pre-registration is required.

RSVP here »

November 30, 2017 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Change it Up! brings bystander intervention skills to the University of Michigan community for the purpose of building inclusive, respectful, and safe communities. It is based on a nationally recognized four-stage bystander intervention model that helps individuals intervene in situations that negatively impact individuals, organizations, and the campus community.

Pre-registration is required.

RSVP here »

November 29, 2017 - 4:00pm to 6:00pm

As part of the U-M Fall 2017 Marching Forward series, we invite you to engage across disciplines, generations, and communities to advance research and scholarship that explores political, social, and economic injustices, and/or advances strategies for effective social justice mobilization.

Through this symposium, we aim to engage the U-M community and the public in further understanding critical historical topics and fostering an intellectual community to explore the civil rights issues of today.

Agenda and list of presenters

This symposium takes place two days after the anticipated visit of Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell to the University of Michigan (Nov 27th, Hill Auditorium). Their acclaimed graphic novel trilogy, March, recounts Lewis's experiences throughout the Civil Rights Movement. In protest marches from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, John Lewis and 600 other marchers drew attention to the importance of voting rights for all African Americans. The marchers were brutally attacked by state troopers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. John Lewis and the marchers did not abandon their cause, but instead propelled the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

This event is co-presented by the International Institute’s Conflict and Peace Initiative, Department of Psychology, National Center for Institutional Diversity, and the Rackham Program in Public Scholarship. For questions regarding the symposium, please email MarchingForward@umich.edu.

November 27, 2017 - 7:00pm to 9:30pm

Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell, co-authors of the graphic novel trilogy MARCH, will give a keynote presentation that included a Q&A and book-signing. March powerfully recounts Lewis's experiences throughout the Civil Rights Movement and has won many awards, including the National Book Award.

This free and public event will be live-streamed and recorded and will offer open seating on a first come, first serve basis (i.e., there will be no tickets).

John Lewis is a civil rights leader and an American politician, serving Georgia's 5th district since 1987. A member of the Democratic party leadership, Lewis has served as Senior Chief Deputy Whip since 2003. Born the son of Alabama sharecroppers, Lewis's childhood was filled with deeply inspirational moments, including the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the words of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. heard on radio broadcasts. As a college student, Lewis's inspiration fueled his commitment to end legalized racial segregation; he was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was one of the "Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. His dedication to the highest ethical standards and moral principles has won Lewis the admiration of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the United States Congress. Lewis has dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties, and building what he calls "The Beloved Community" in America. Lewis co-wrote his story with his then-Congressional Aid, now Digital Director and Policy Advisor, Andrew Aydin, in the form of the graphic novel trilogy, MARCH (2013). The collaborative work is illustrated by New York Times best-selling graphic novelist Nate Powell.

November 15, 2017 - 6:00pm to 7:30pm

CEW is honored to bring celebrated and award-winning actress, producer & equal rights advocate Laverne Cox to Rackham Auditorium. Doors will open at 5:30 PM.

In Ms. Cox's lecture, titled Ain't I a Woman: My Journey to Womanhood, she will be sharing her experiences as a trans woman of color, and her work as an international advocate for human rights and gender equality. This lecture serves as the capstone event to the 2017 CEW Spectrum of Advocacy & Activism Symposium being held earlier in the day.

This event is free and open to the public, however, tickets are sold out. The lecture cannot be recorded; however, it will be live-streamed at the Rackham Amphitheatre and the Michigan League Ballroom. Live-stream tickets are available.

November 15, 2017 - 8:30am to 7:30pm

CEW is leading a one-day Spectrum of Advocacy and Activism Symposium focused on advocacy and activism training. This event will demonstrate how a person’s activism can change over time, how advocacy is tied to a person’s context and situational power, and how partnering with diverse perspectives can strengthen advocacy and activism efforts. "Health outcomes" has been selected as the theme for this year’s symposium because of increasing uncertainty surrounding healthcare in America, including coverage for women’s health care (mental health, mammograms, birth control, maternity care, etc.). The symposium will include presentations by local and national advocacy experts who have taken varied approaches to advocacy in ways that best leverage their current context (power, privilege, and identity). Find more information here.

November 13, 2017 - 6:30pm to 8:00pm

Z Nicolazzo (pronouns: ze/hir) will host an evening keynote that goes deeper into discussing the book Trans* in College: Transgender Students’ Strategies for Navigating Campus Life and the Institutional Politics of Inclusion.

Ze is an assistant professor and faculty associate at Northern Illinois University. Hir research focuses on mapping gender across college contexts, with a particular emphasis on affirmative and resilience-based research alongside trans* students.

Snacks will be provided.

Register here »

Free and open to the public.

November 13, 2017 - 12:30pm to 1:30pm

Join the DEI Office, TBLG Matters and Spectrum Center in welcoming Z Nicolazzo (pronouns: ze/hir) for an interactive discussion on Ze's research on Trans* In College: Personal Pathways To and Through The Research Process. Ze is an assistant professor and faculty associate at Northern Illinois University. Hir research focuses on mapping gender across college contexts, with a particular emphasis on affirmative and resilience-based research alongside trans* students. Ze recently published a book titled Trans* in College: Transgender Students’ Strategies for Navigating Campus Life and the Institutional Politics of Inclusion.

Lunch will be provided. Registration is required.

RSVP here »

November 9, 2017 - 12:00pm to 2:00pm

Join the Management Leadership Learning Community for a Lunch n' Learn presentation on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in organizations. Our presenter is Yodit Mesfin-Johnson with NEW: Solutions for Nonprofits and Yodit will speak on many experiences with this topic in their organization. This event is in conjunction with the DE&I office and Diversity Week.

 

YODIT MESFIN JOHNSON is Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Strategy for NEW | Solutions for Nonprofits. She has overall strategic and operational responsibility for all NEW programs and manages NEW's program directors. As the chief program officer she provides leadership to NEW’s strategic planning process and implements new programmatic strategic initiatives. She is a nationally recognized leader in business development, nonprofit management and social entrepreneurship.

Yodit brings extensive corporate, entrepreneurial and community based experience to this role. Prior to joining NEW, Yodit directed a statewide business and economic development program for the Center for Empowerment and Economic Development (CEED). In that capacity and since, she has been a frequent speaker and advocate for nonprofits and socially conscious innovators.

Yodit studied Marketing, Communications and Gender Studies at Eastern Michigan University. She is the 2016 recipient of the Black United Fund’s Epic Leader and Community Conduit Award. A nationally recognized speaker, teacher, activist and on-air personality, Yodit juggles many responsibilities, including being a Mom,while using her voice to champion causes that promote equity, access and opportunity for all people.

Resources

Building Diverse Teams for High Performance »