The University of Michigan in the Era of Black Lives Matter and Mass Incarceration is a primer on racial injustice at U-M first released in July 2020 and written by a group of faculty who work with the Prison Creative Arts Project, the Semester in Detroit program, and the Carceral State Project’s Documenting Criminalization and Confinement research initiative. The document provides an overview of, and our conclusions regarding, many of the key issues raised by campus and community members over the past several years, including U-M’s carceral practices in admissions and employment; prison education; the need to reassess our relationship with the Ann Arbor Police Department and campus police; and the status of the university’s relationship to Detroit. We invite you to share these resources with your communities and to send us your experiences and feedback as part of ongoing conversations, organizing, and action in pursuit of meaningful change.

This primer is presented in two ways: a newsletter overview with graphics, and a longer pdf text document with links to additional resources. The newsletter version is also embedded below.

*Thank you to the Carceral State Project for this introduction to the primer!