Professor of English David Porter has received a 2020 Confronting and Combating Racism Grant for his project titled, "Detroit River Story Lab." The Center for Social Solutions, in partnership with Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan made the competition available to faculty at the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses to pursue action-based research aimed at ending systemic and institutional racism in forms including systemic oppression, organizational exclusion, institutional discrimination, neglectful policy, and violence against the minds, bodies and cultures of people of color.

David Porter is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. In recent years, his research has begun to explore facets of the literary, environmental, and sociocultural history of the Great Lakes region.