Featured Articles

The Kirwan Institute has been providing technical assistance to the Detroit Civic Engagement Fellows as they work to craft an equitable civic engagement plan for the residents of Detroit and the surrounding region amid the city’s dramatic reorganization. Over the past nine months, the Kirwan Institute has helped plan site visits to communities throughout the country in order to experience new civic engagement models and innovative ideas that may be useful to civic engagement in Detroit.

Now on the verge of a regional and national movement, the African American Leadership Forum (AALF) aims to change the conditions for African Americans in the Twin Cities, Des Moines, Portland, Seattle and Tacoma. While the challenges that face individual communities often require individual solutions, the region faces similar challenges and opportunities in education, housing, and economic development, health and wellness, leadership and civic engagement, and criminal justice.

The Institute is working together with PolicyLink to provide mapping support for an equity assessment, to be used by the Lakota tribe to apply for HUD funding for reservation housing. We are also providing expert advice as the tribe establishes a regional planning office.

The Institute is working in collaboration with H-GAC to facilitate an opportunity mapping initiative in the 13-county Texas Gulf Coast planning region to inform the region’s Fair Housing Equity Assessment (FHEA). At 12,500 square miles, the H-GAC service area is larger than 9 other states’ total areas and poses a challenge for opportunity mapping, both in scale and in geographic and economic diversity. For this reason, we are exploring with H-GAC the development of a meaningful typology of sub-regions for opportunity.

By Sharon Davies,

By Christy Rogers, Director of Outreach,

By Thomas Rudd,

Sharon L. Davies Director’s Message, January 2013 In the opening month of 2013 we have marked the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, witnessed the second inauguration of the nation’s first African American President, and heard news that Lincoln—a film celebrating the successful 1865 battle to adopt the 13th Amendment guaranteeing Black freedom—is a frontrunner for numerous Academy awards. Milestones like these are rightly celebrated, for they are testament to the human capacity to acknowledge our errors and wrongs and to rectify our mistakes.

By Jason Reece, Research Director,

By Thomas Rudd,

Fisher v. University of Texas The Amicus Brief filed on behalf of 2025 Network for Black Men and Boys:

By Sharon Davies, Executive Director, The challenge in the Fisher v. University of Texas case is about more than whether the University of Texas (and others like it) should be permitted to factor race along with numerous other aspects of an applicant’s biography when attempting to create a diverse learning environment. It is an attack on diversity and inclusion as a value.

By Jillian Olinger, Research Associate,

By Cheryl Staats, Research Associate,

By Christy Rogers, PhD, Director of Outreach,

UNCONSCIOUS BIAS AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM A Presentation to the Ohio Courts of Appeals Judges Association (OCAJA) – Fall Conference 2012 [Download Presentation] PPT Sharon L. Davies John C. Elam/Vorys Sater Professor of Law Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University Executive Director Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity

Black Male Initiative Leadership Convening

By Thomas Rudd,

Sharon L. Davies, John C. Elam/Vorys Sater ProfessorExecutive Director, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & EthnicityMoritz College of Law, 1L OrientationAugust 15, 2012  Download Presentation: [PDF] [PPT]