Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Black Students ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Student Body ◽  
College Leaders ◽  
Ann Arbor ◽  
Racial Inclusion ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The University

This introductory chapter provides an overview of how elite universities responded to black campus activists by making racial inclusion and inequality compatible, focusing on the University of Michigan (UM). Since the 1960s, UM has gained national recognition for its racial inclusion programs. University and college leaders from around the country began visiting Ann Arbor because they saw UM as a model of inclusion. For the same reason, opponents of affirmative action and racial sensitivity training targeted UM in op-eds, books, and lawsuits. Given UM's reputation, it was no surprise when the university found itself at the center of two of the most famous affirmative action lawsuits of the twenty-first century: Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger (2003). In the eyes of black students, however, UM has never represented a model of racial inclusion. Black students' share of the student body has never matched blacks' share of the state or national population, and the majority of black students have never reported satisfaction with the university's racial climate. Nevertheless, black students' critiques never stopped UM leaders from claiming that racial inclusion was one of the university's core values.

Sustaining Racial Retrenchment

2020 ◽  
pp. 164-187
Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Black Students ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Student Body ◽  
New Policies ◽  
The University ◽  
Corporate Model

This chapter describes how the University of Michigan (UM) leaders fought to preserve the new affirmative action policies. In this context, diversity—the idea that a racially heterogeneous student body improved education and prepared students for a multiracial democracy and global economy—became a tool to defend and sustain the new policies. Diversity helped sever the purpose of affirmative action from addressing the inequality rooted in cities, offered ambiguous goals that helped officials avoid accountability, and advanced administrators' interests in introducing a corporate model for the university. The diversity ideal, in other words, did not spark racial retrenchment. Instead, diversity became a tool to sustain the university's policies of retrenchment. Administrators still had to work to retain control over the meaning of diversity and ensure it supported the new policies. When diversity took hold among administrators, black students and their allies tried to employ diversity language to undermine the policies of retrenchment. Administrators ensured that never happened.

Affirmative Action for Whom?

2020 ◽  
pp. 144-163
Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Black Students ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Student Body ◽  
Student Activists ◽  
Suburban Areas ◽  
Working Class Students ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The University

This chapter addresses the new affirmative action policies in the University of Michigan (UM), which ultimately led to the racial retrenchment of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Almost all the enrollment gains made since the Black Action Movement (BAM) were reversed. During these years, black enrollment fell from 7.25 percent to 4.9 percent of UM's student body by 1983. Just as important, the economic backgrounds of black students at UM changed, as UM officials shifted their recruiting, admissions, and financial aid policies to focus on bringing middle-class black students from suburban areas around the country. Even as black enrollment began to rise again in the mid-1980s, UM would never again craft its affirmative action policies to target working-class students in Detroit. Ultimately, the policies administrators introduced in the late 1970s revealed that the co-optation of racial justice was a long-term project that evolved to protect the university's priorities as conditions changed. The declining power of black student activists also gave administrators more control over how the university would respond to the changing environment. By the end of the 1970s, the character of affirmative action looked nothing like BAM's vision of racial justice.

Controlling Inclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 104-143
Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Black Students ◽  
Asian American ◽  
Racial Climate ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Institutional Mission ◽  
Admissions Policies ◽  
Racial Inclusion ◽  
The University

This chapter assesses how the five-year period between 1970 and 1975 changed the University of Michigan (UM). The university implemented the most ambitious affirmative action admissions policies in its history, increased the number of black officials on campus, and redistributed millions of dollars to inclusion initiatives. At the same time, UM administrators deployed new and old techniques to co-opt black campus activism. They added new disciplinary codes to deter confrontational activism; expanded the inclusion bureaucracy; and fought against black, Asian American, Chicano, and Native American activists who tried to build on the Black Action Movement (BAM) concessions. By 1975, BAM's revolutionary vision that called for a new institutional mission was nowhere to be found. The university still had not reached the 10 percent black enrollment goal, and the racial climate was still creating obstacles for black students on campus. The fact that black campus activists were not able to mobilize a campus strike that rivaled BAM's in response to these failures signaled that executive administrators had a firm grasp on racial inclusion once again.

The Origins of Affirmative Action

2020 ◽  
pp. 40-66
Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Affirmative Action ◽  
The United States ◽  
Court Cases ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Student Body ◽  
Black Activism ◽  
Workplace Justice ◽  
Federal Contracts ◽  
The University

This chapter examines the origins of affirmative action in the University of Michigan (UM). The pressure that led to the university's first undergraduate affirmative action admissions program came from a federal bureaucrat and the president of the United States, who were both responding to black activism for workplace justice. Yet this pressure never threatened UM with the loss of lucrative federal contracts or potential court cases. UM adopted affirmative action in 1964 because people at the top of the institution wanted the university to change. This environment of weak federal coercion created a perfect recipe for co-optation. After the initial dose of federal pressure, UM officials took control of the purpose and character of affirmative action, creating a program that preserved the university's long-established priorities and values. It is no surprise, then, that between 1964 and 1967, black enrollment rose from only 0.5 to 1.65 percent of the student body. However, given that African Americans constituted more than 10 percent of the state population, affirmative action made a small dent in the racial disparities at UM.

African Americans in Economics at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Since the Kerner Commission Report of 1968

2019 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 379-398
Author(s):  
Charles L. Betsey
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Faculty Diversity ◽  
Ann Arbor ◽  
Commission Report ◽  
Kerner Commission ◽  
Black Economists ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The University

The campus of the University of Michigan experienced student unrest of the 1960s surrounding the Vietnam war and demands for racial inclusion. How the university, particularly the Department of Economics, responded in the aftermath of the Kerner Commission Report is the focus of this article. Michigan is not unique in producing few Black PhD economists over its history, having graduated 15 Black PhD economists of the more than 1,100 who have graduated from the department to date. Supreme Court decisions and a state ballot initiative halted the progress that was being made by the University to improve student and faculty diversity. Despite this, Michigan is one of only a few economics departments at majority institutions to have been home to several Black economists simultaneously. The fact that this is a notable statistic speaks to the lack of diversity of economics faculties nationwide.

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