The Michigan Mandate

2020 ◽  
pp. 188-214
Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Black Students ◽  
White Students ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Underrepresented Minority ◽  
Underrepresented Minority Students ◽  
Interracial Contact ◽  
Student Activists ◽  
Admissions Policies ◽  
Racial Inclusion ◽  
The University

This chapter focuses on the Michigan Mandate, one of the most ambitious racial inclusion initiatives in the University of Michigan's (UM) history. The initiative responded to black student activists who, in 1987, led a campus-wide protest that threatened to shut down university operations. The Michigan Mandate allocated unprecedented resources to repair UM's racial climate and increase underrepresented minority students, faculty, and staff. However, the Mandate did not represent an institutional revolution; the Michigan Mandate represented a deliberate attempt to co-opt the student movement for racial justice on campus and gain administrative control of racial inclusion. Although the Mandate raised black enrollment and redistributed millions of dollars to inclusion initiatives, it sustained some of the most important pieces of co-optation. UM officials continued to protect the admissions policies that targeted middle-class black students living outside cities. Officials also continued to privilege the goal of combating white students' prejudice through interracial contact over addressing black students' social alienation. Diversity continued to serve as a key intellectual foundation in sustaining these priorities.

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.

Rise of the Black Campus Movement

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-103
Author(s):  
Matthew Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Black Student ◽  
University Of Michigan ◽  
Racial Justice ◽  
Black Activism ◽  
Student Protests ◽  
Student Activists ◽  
Successful Student ◽  
Black Campus Movement ◽  
Managerial Strategy ◽  
The University

This chapter looks at the rise of the black campus movement. University of Michigan (UM) leaders were not ready for black campus activism; they took comfort in the fact that black activism was still something unfolding off campus. That all changed in the late 1960s. Black activism that took over buildings and shut down classes threatened university operations. The black campus activists also offered more radical visions of inclusion than federal bureaucrats had. They wanted to create an institution that saw racial justice as the driving force of its mission. A new president led the University of Michigan through these protests. Arriving at the university in January of 1968, Robben Fleming introduced a new managerial strategy to co-opt activism. His efforts worked briefly to stem the tide of black student protests in the late 1960s, but they ultimately failed when Fleming did not provide the types of policies and initiatives that would satisfy activists. By 1970, black student activists organized the most successful student strike in the university's history, calling into question whether UM leaders could retain control of the meaning and character of racial inclusion.

Black Student-Faculty Mentorship Programs

2016 ◽  
pp. 43-61
Author(s):  
Shavonne Shorter
Keyword(s):  
Black Students ◽  
Minority Students ◽  
Black Student ◽  
Colleges And Universities ◽  
Black Faculty ◽  
Underrepresented Minority ◽  
Job Responsibilities ◽  
Underrepresented Minority Students ◽  
Mentorship Programs ◽  
Faculty Mentorship

This chapter discusses recommendations for how colleges and universities can institute formal mentorship programs between Black students who have the aptitude and/or interest to become professors and Black faculty. Recommendations about concerns that mentors should address have been crafted based on the expressed needs and desires of Black students from the work of Shorter (2014). The chapter will detail the types of activities the program should include such as learning more about expected job responsibilities. The chapter also discusses intended outcomes associated with the program, the ultimate being an increase in the numbers of Black students that become professors. The chapter concludes with recommendations to expand the program's scope to include all underrepresented minority students.

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.

scholarly journals Work in Progress: Aligning What We Want With What We Seek: Increasing Comprehensive Review in the Graduate Admissions Process

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
La'Tonia Stiner-Jones ◽  
Wolfgang Windl
Keyword(s):  
Performance Metrics ◽  
Materials Science ◽  
Graduate Programs ◽  
Graduate Degree ◽  
Underrepresented Minority ◽  
Underrepresented Minority Students ◽  
Bridge Program ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Over Time

To improve the identification of students likely to complete a graduate degree, we sought to change our process and the way we evaluate students for admission. For this, we changed the application and review process to include an assessment of applicants’ non-cognitive variables based on Sedlacek’s work and the Fisk-Vanderbilt MS-PhD Bridge Program admissions model. In 2016, our Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) Department piloted the incorporation of these changes. Consequently, MSE increased the enrollment of women and underrepresented minority students by 19% and 57%, respectively and we will be evaluating the impact of the changes on performance metrics and completion rates over time. Ahead of this application cycle, we have made changes to the applications of more of our graduate programs in the college. Most recently, we were asked to create a plan for the university. As changes continue, we will evaluate outcomes and impact within the college and across the university over time, which we hope will inform best practices for improving completion of graduate degrees and diversity of graduate programs.

scholarly journals Mizzou Missteps

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 129-136
Author(s):  
Lauren Elizabeth McGuire
Keyword(s):  
Black Students ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
College Campuses ◽  
White Americans ◽  
Hunger Strike ◽  
University Of Missouri ◽  
Racial Inclusion ◽  
The University

By denying that issues of bias and mistreatment exist and then confronting such issues with disdain, some White Americans enable injustice and abet systems of oppression. Black students at the University of Missouri in fall 2015 had seen this narrative ring true several times. The resulting events, including protests, a hunger strike, and several administrator resignations, cast light on the experience of black students at Mizzou through nationwide media coverage. This case study examines three opportunities turned missteps of administrators that exacerbated an already charged, contentious environment: the president’s refusal to acknowledge protestors at a homecoming parade, a too-little-too-late meeting with stakeholders, and the impacts of the football team’s involvement. In a country whose everyday population growth is 90 percent non-white, a greater awareness of the racial inclusion work needed on college campuses today is necessary. I hope my narrative heightens this awareness.

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