Departments and Research Centers

Center for Racial Justice

The Center for Racial Justice is an innovative and cross-disciplinary hub in which social/racial justice changemakers, scholars, and students work collaboratively to develop new tools and strategies in the pursuit of racial justice.

Showing 1 - 30 of 175 results
Visiting faculty

Atinuke Adediran

Visiting Fellow, Center for Racial Justice
Atinuke (Tinu) Adediran’s is an Associate Professor of Law at Fordham University School of Law. Her areas of expertise include institutional inequality, race and the law, nonprofits, corporations, and law and social science. Dr. Adediran has…
Visiting faculty

Makeda Easter

Visiting Fellow, Center for Racial Justice
Easter is an award-winning journalist whose writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, KCET, Dance Magazine, Austin Chronicle, Chemical & Engineering News, and more. Her current work features an independent digital publication focused on artists-activists in underreported regions and communities.
Visiting faculty

Julian Brave NoiseCat

Visiting Fellow, Center for Racial Justice
Julian Brave NoiseCat is a member of the Canim Lake Band Tsq’escen and a descendant of the Lil’Wat Nation of Mount Currie. he is a writer and filmmaker currently based in the Pacific Northwest. He is the author of We Survived the Night and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and more.
Staff

Dom Adams-Santos

Associate Director, Center for Racial Justice
Dr. Adams-Santos is a qualitative researcher who centers questions of sexuality, intimacy, and belonging in the digital era; in particular, how individuals navigate the racial, gender, and sexual politics of digital and urban landscapes in their search for intimacy and community.
Research faculty

Mara Ostfeld

Research Director, Center for Racial Justice; Associate Research Scientist, Ford School; Faculty Associate, Center for Political Studies; Faculty Associate, Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy
Dr. Mara Cecilia Ostfeld is the research director at the Center for Racial Justice, and an associate research scientist in the Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. In addition, Mara is a faculty lead at the Detroit Metro Area…
Core faculty

Paula Lantz

James B. Hudak Professor of Health Policy; Director, BA Programs
A social demographer, Lantz studies the role of public policy in improving population health and reducing social disparities in health. She is currently engaged in research regarding innovative financing approaches for supportive housing among Medicaid beneficiaries, and also on how COVID-19 is exacerbating existing social and health inequalities in the U.S.
Core faculty

Celeste M. Watkins-Hayes

Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of Public Policy; Director, Center for Racial Justice; Jean E. Fairfax Collegiate Professor of Public Policy; University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor; Professor of Sociology; Research and Community Impact Fellow, Anti-Racism Collaborative
Watkins-Hayes is an internationally-recognized scholar and expert on HIV/AIDS; urban poverty; social policy; and racial, class, and gender inequality. Her work illuminates social problems of great interest to scholars, communities, and policymakers. She works at the intersection of sociology, African American Studies, and public policy. Her work analyzes the impact of the HIV epidemic on women and the growth of the HIV safety net.
News

Meet our new faculty: Kristina Fullerton Rico

Sep 22, 2023
Kristina Fullerton Rico joins the Ford School as a Predoctoral Fellow at the Center for Racial Justice. Her work focuses on the social and emotional impacts of U.S. immigration policies that lead unauthorized immigrants and their families to endure...
News

Meet our new faculty: Mo Torres

Aug 25, 2023
Mo Torres returns to the Ford School (he graduated with his MPP in 2015) as one of six University of Michigan Society of Fellows for a three-year appointment. He will work closely with the Center for Racial Justice. Torres is a historical...
News

PPIA students reflect on their summer of study and social life 

Aug 2, 2023
What are the dynamics of inequity in labor markets? How do we determine appropriate categories for people in a multicultural society?  How is the U.S. approach to ethnicity and nationality different from what they are doing in Europe?  These were...
News

Ford School welcomes PPIA 2023 cohort

Jun 19, 2023
The 2023 Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Junior Summer Institute (JSI) has welcomed 23 students from 11 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. This year’s cohort will spend seven weeks taking classes, participating in...
News

Watkins-Hayes recommended new dean of Ford School

Jun 2, 2023
Celeste M. Watkins-Hayes, interim dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and a scholar known for her research on the organizational implementation of social policy and societal safety nets, has been recommended as the school’s next Joan...
State & Hill

Catalysts for racial justice

May 3, 2023
Three inaugural Center for Racial Justice visiting fellows—Julian Brave NoiseCat, Makeda Easter, and Atinuke (Tinu) O. Adediran—reflect on the work they've pursued during their year at the Ford School. By Lillian Chen and Rebecca Cohen (MPP...
News

We must change hearts to achieve equality - Alemu

Mar 19, 2023
What is the best way to combat racism -- change policies or change hearts? That is the question Matthew Alemu (MPP '09, PhD) contends with in an essay for Bridge Detroit.  "Racism resides where society and policy have yet to tackle it directly,...
News

Poverty Solutions marks impact of action-based research in 2022

Mar 15, 2023
From informing how the U.S. Census estimates populations to reimagining land contracts as a path to homeownership and inspiring state legislation that would aid homeless youths, Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan continued to tackle the...