National Center for Institutional Diversity

Distinguished Lecture Series

As a major part of its function as a think tank, the NCID hosts an ongoing lecture series that features national experts on diversity. Collectively, these lectures serve as a means for furthering the NCID’s intellectual agenda—to examine diversity in the deepest sense, collaborating with other national leaders to identify areas where new research is needed.

Struggling Toward Justice in Education
Challenging Racism in a Dynamic Sociopolitical Climate
Equity and Access in a Post-Affirmative Action Environment

Struggling Toward Justice in Education: Thoughts from James Anderson
Feb. 7, 2008
4-5:30 p.m., Rackham Amphitheatre

Watch the lecture video.

Read the University Record Article, Talk: Future of black education relies on embracing past

James Anderson, Edward William and Jane Marr Gutsgell Professor of History of American Education, Head of the Department of Educational Policy Studies
University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

As a professor of history and educational policy studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, James Anderson has written extensively on the history of African American education, the history of higher education desegregation in southern states, the history of public school desegregation, institutional racism, and the representation of Blacks in secondary school history textbooks. Most recently, his work has concentrated on the history of African American public higher education and the development of African American school achievement in the 20th century. His book The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860-1935 won the American Educational Research Association's Outstanding Book Award in 1990. He has served as an expert witness in a series of federal desegregation and affirmative action cases, including Liddell v. Missouri, Jenkins v. Missouri, Knight v. Alabama, Ayers v. Mississippi, and Gratz v. Bollinger. He served as advisor to and participant in the PBS documentaries "School: The Story of American Public Education" (2001), "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow" (2002), and "Forgotten Genius: The Percy Julian Story" (2007). He is Senior Editor of the History of Education Quarterly.

Co-sponsored by: Office of the Provost, School of Education, School of Public Policy, Law School, BAMN, Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, Department of History, and the Department of Sociology.

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Challenging Racism in a Dynamic Sociopolitical Climate
April 16, 2007

Panelists:
Mark A. Chesler, Professor Emeritus of Sociology
University of Michigan

James E. Crowfoot, Professor Emeritus of Natural Resources and Urban and Regional Planning
School of Natural Resources and Environment
University of Michigan

Amanda E. Lewis, Associate Professor of Sociology and African American Studies
University of Illinois, Chicago

Panelists addressed racism in higher education from an organizational perspective based on their book, Challenging Racism in Higher Education: Promoting Justice (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2005). Ensuing discussion with the audience connected such topics as the effects of racialized structures and cultures, growing economic inequities, growing elitism and declining access to public flagship institutions, and strategies for addressing institutionalized racism in higher education.

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Equity and Access in a Post-Affirmative Action Environment
January 30, 2007

Professor John A. Powell
Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity

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