U of Michigan gets grants to study racial inequality

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — The University of Michigan has been awarded two $5 million grants to fund projects that focus on addressing racial inequity.

The grants are through The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Just Futures Initiative competition and will be used over the next three years.

They will be led by professors Stephanie Fryberg and Earl Lewis.

“We’re proud to have these exceptional scholars on our campus,” Provost Susan Collins said. “These unprecedented awards recognize the outstanding humanities research that is happening at U-M, supported by a robust ecosystem, as well as the ingenuity of our scholars.”

Fryberg is professor of University Diversity and Social Transformation and psychology.

Lewis is the Thomas C. Holt Distinguished University Professor of history, Afroamerican and African Studies and Public Policy. Lewis also is director of the Center for Social Solutions.

More than $72 million in grants for 16 humanities, arts, and humanities-inflected social sciences projects across the U.S. have been awarded by The Mellon Foundation.

The initiative was designed to support “visionary, unconventional, experimental and groundbreaking projects in order to address the long-existing fault lines of racism, inequality and injustice that tear at the fabric of democracy and civil society,” the foundation said.