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Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan

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Research

Confronting and Combating Racism Grant Program

Poverty Solutions and the Center for Social Solutions partner to support action-based research aimed at ending systemic and institutional racism. Successful action-based research projects​ ​cut across disciplines, and address challenges such as systemic oppression, organizational exclusion, institutional discrimination, neglectful policy, and violence against the minds, bodies, and cultures of people of color.

U-M’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; Michigan Engineering; the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy; the Law School; the National Center for Institutional Diversity; the Provost’s Office; and the School of Social Work also support the grant program, which is part of a larger, university-wide commitment to fund scholarship, teaching, and service initiatives related to racial equity.

The current program is supporting projects through May 2021.

2020 Confronting and Combating Racism

  • Beyond Rhetoric: Confronting and Combating Racism in Genesee County, Michigan On June 10, 2020, the Genesee County Board of Commissioners approved a resolution declaring racism a public health crisis. This research project aims to ensure this resolution has a meaningful impact on the health and well-being of residents of color, extending beyond mere rhetoric. To accomplish that, researchers will: Develop a decision-making Community Action Council…
  • Democracy's Denominator: How Citizenship-based Redistricting Impacts Racial Minority Voters For the past half century, congressional and state legislative districts in the U.S. have been drawn to equalize the total population of each district. But recently, legislators in several states with Republican-controlled legislatures have hinted at potentially changing the unit of apportionment to eligible citizen voters. This new approach has been empowered by the Trump…
  • Detroit River Story Lab The Detroit River Story Lab will work with regional organizations to co-produce and disseminate historically nuanced, contextually aware, and culturally rooted stories recasting the role of the Detroit River in the lives of adjacent communities from an anti-racist perspective and documenting its history as part of the Underground Railroad. The Story Lab will do this…
  • The Study Of Black Families’ Response To COVID In The Support Of Mathematics Learning COVID-19 has further exposed the racial inequalities within the U.S., notably in the disproportionate mortality rates of Black people. Black families must adapt to a new racialized landscape that includes the precarious intersections of public health, economic, and racial crises. This project uses a mixed methods case study design to amplify how Black families make…
  • Using Police Body Camera Footage to Experimentally Assess the Effects of Routine Police Encounters for Community Trust and Community Health Racial inequities in American policing are at the forefront of public consciousness in 2020. This research project will evaluate the physiological stress Black and white people experience during routine traffic stops, offering insights on the relationship between policing and minority health. Study participants will listen to audio recordings of actual traffic stops, as recorded by…
  • Virulent Hate: Anti-Asian Racism and Resistance during the COVID-19 Pandemic In the U.S., the first half of 2020 saw a sharp rise in hate incidents targeting Asian Americans, who have been scapegoated for the novel coronavirus. This project, which is a collaboration with the Stop AAPI Hate Reporting Center and its community partners, aims to improve public understanding of contemporary anti-Asian racism and resistance. To study the…
Explore project archive