A new report from the nonprofit Zinn Education Project found that 45 states have insufficient or non-existent lesson coverage of Reconstruction in schools. Kidada Williams, a history professor at Wayne State University and host of the podcast Seizing Freedom, joins a panel of experts in a discussion about the legacy of Reconstruction in America, as the Smithsonian Museum presents the exhibition “Make Good on the Promises: Reconstruction and Its Legacies.” Williams and her fellow historians warn that eclipsing the aftermath of the Civil War will lead students to be uninformed about the seeds of racial inequality today. Williams’ essay “Legacies of Violence” is part of the companion book to the Smithsonian exhibition. “…the violence that we experience in the present day, like the killing of George Floyd or even the massacre at Mother Emmanuel Church, has a deep history that traces back to Reconstruction and this moment where African Americans are trying to be free, equal, and secure, and they’re experiencing what essentially amounts to a war on freedom – specifically Black peoples’ freedom. The essay talks a lot about how they’re trying to figure out how to live within this system while also communicating the horrors they’re enduring…”  

Dallas is known as a diverse city filled with people of different races, nationalities, religions and socio-economic backgrounds. In an effort the educate the community, celebrate the right attributes of its residents and help the community and nation heal from racial and political unrest, several religious organizations joined together to present the Faiths in Conversation: Religion, Race and Justice conference. The event featured R. Khari Brown, associate professor of sociology at Wayne State University and president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Brown began the discussion focusing on the connections between the Black Lives Matter movement and how race and religion have played a role in people’s views of the topic. “Like other human rights movements on this nation’s past, religious groups are also among the demonstrators,” Brown said. “For example, on June 4, 2020, people marched with hundreds of others in Detroit to demand an end to police brutality. The march began with Christian and Jewish and Muslim leaders praying for guidance. It ended with religious leaders and elected officials calling legislators to support policies aimed at reducing police violence and encouraging marchers to vote their conscience for the 2020 general election…” 

By Lily Bohlke  More than 2.5 million Americans stutter at some point in their lives, and a Michigan researcher is among those learning more about the genetics of stuttering. There is no known cure for it, but experts say newly identified genes associated with stuttering can help them find out if there are links to other conditions or possible treatments. Shelly Jo Kraft, who directs the Behavior, Speech and Genetics lab at Wayne State University, said the new genes are helping researchers learn more about the factors that contribute to stuttering, or protect people from risk. “We’ve known stuttering is inherited for a long time,” she said. “But there’s been a lot of community misinformation about stuttering, a lot of stigma, a lot of misconception about why someone stutters.” Having more information about how the genes operate that lead people to stutter can help push back against those misconceptions – to show that stuttering isn’t a personality trait, or caused by a traumatic event. 

There was big news from NASA recently with the Christmas Day launch of the new James Webb Space Telescope, which that could reveal some of the most fundamental information about the origins of our universe. Astrophysicist Edward Cackett, who is an associate professor of astronomy and chair of the planetarium advisory board at Wayne State University, says the new telescope will give us a glimpse of some of the universe’s earliest galaxies, as well as give us hints about where extraterrestrial life might be abundant on other planets. “We’ll actually be able to see the signature, for instance, of water vapor around planets around other stars and potentially see the signatures of life on distant planets,” Cackett said.  

Mark Satta, assistant professor of philosophy at Wayne State University, wrote an article analyzing an upcoming case that the Supreme Court will hear, Shurtleff v. Boston, which addresses whether the city violated the First Amendment by denying a request to temporarily raise the Christian flag on a flagpole outside City Hall, where Boston has temporarily displayed many secular organizations’ flags. Satta writes that the case raises important questions about free speech at a time when many members of the Supreme Court seem concerned about restrictions on religion. The court’s decision will likely clarify one or more free speech doctrines, impacting how courts nationwide interpret the First Amendment’s guarantees. 

By Paul Vachon  Lars Johnson, assistant professor of psychology at Wayne State University, participated in an interview about the future of the workplace. He said the most effective way for employers to address the current labor circumstances is to listen closely to the personal concerns of workers and potential hires. In his view, the post-pandemic economy presents an opportunity for employers to rewrite the traditional social contract between management and worker. These include concerns over workplace safety, flexible scheduling, adequate compensation, and greater respect for employee work-life balance. “The pandemic forced people into their homes and out of their normal work routines, due to either remote work, layoff, or termination, so people had to find alternate modes of work,” he said. “The pandemic shifted the labor market in ways we couldn’t account for. People realized the conditions in which they worked were problematic.”  

By R. Khari Brown, assoicate professor of sociology, and Ronald Brown, associate professor of political science.  On June 5, 2020, it had been just over a week since a white Minnesota police officer, Derek Chauvin, killed George Floyd, an unarmed, African American man. Protests were underway outside Central United Methodist Church, an interracial church in downtown Detroit with a long history of activism on civil rights, peace, immigrant rights and poverty issues. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the church was no longer holding in-person worship services. But anyone walking into its sanctuary that day would have seen long red flags behind the pastor’s lectern, displaying the words “peace” and “love.” A banner reading “Michigan Says No! To War” hung alongside pictures of civil rights icons Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., as well as labor-rights activist Cesar Chavez. In line with her church’s activist tradition, senior pastor Jill Hardt Zundell stood outside the building and preached about her church’s commitment to eradicating anti-Black racism to her congregants and all that passed by.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit partnered with Wayne State University's anthropology department to conduct an excavation on the museum's grounds as part of an ongoing art exhibit entitled "All Monsters" by Chicago native Jan Tichy. Random household items, including pieces of a clay pot and an old medicine bottle, were unearthed by Wayne State students and will be transformed into works of art. The exhibit is located in artist Mike Kelley's "Mobile Homestead," a full-scale replica of Kelley's 1950's ranch-style home in Detroit, which sits on a plot adjacent to the archeological site that was once a women's prison and a place that housed homeless women and children. Wayne State University professor of anthropology Krysta Ryzewski said the team wanted to incorporate the land's history into the exhibit. "He (Tichy) though that archaeology might be a really interesting way to connect with the art that's on display in his part of the homestead," she said. "So we thought it might be a way to dig underground and bring up the stories of this property and the people who used to live here and utilize the space and many of those people are not known to Detroit's history...We are literally excavating other histories that have been rendered inaccessible because of the changes to the landscape and Detroit over time." 

These days, public health crises are common. The Flint water crisis made global news, highlighting how attempts to cut costs on basic services like clean water led to high levels of led in the water. Crisis lead levels in water, breathing unclean air and not having access to safe areas to play are a daily reality for many. And when the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, many public officials were caught off guard. According to some recent scholarship, public health programs once focused more on public infrastructure and the health of the most vulnerable in society. Tricia Miranda-Hartsuff, a public health associate professor at Wayne State University, says the public health field is now changing to focus on larger structural issues, including institutional racism and poverty that can help create trauma. “What we saw with COVID was this exaggeration of health disparities that had already been prevalent,” she said. “We already knew that certain populations had less access to care, had poorer quality of care.”

By Lily Bohlke  Michigan researchers have received a $3.1 million grant to study potential new sources of rare earth metals and how to process them. Rare earth metals are a set of 17 elements found in the earth’s crust, and are a key component of many high-tech processes from military technology to electronic devices, batteries for electric cars and magnets in wind turbines. The U.S. relies on China for 80% of our rare earth metals, and the prices have spiked over the last year. The lead researchers for the project are Matthew Allen, chair and professor of chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and Timothy Dittrich, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering at Wayne State University. “After we recover the rare earth elements, instead of just putting them in a hazardous-waste landfill, we’re also looking at ways to use those for building materials and other uses so that we don’t have these other problems that we’re creating as we’re recovering rare earth elements,” said Dittrich. 

A multidisciplinary team of researchers at Wayne State University have been awarded a $3.1 million grant from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ERCD program to seek alternative sources of rare earth elements critical to advanced military and consumer technologies. The project, Rare Earths from U.S. Extractions – or REUSE – will focus on both basic and related applied research in science and engineering with the goal of developing a U.S. rare earth element supply chain as well as a process of handling waste streams. REUSE is led by two principal investigators, Matthew J. Allen, chair and professor of chemistry in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Timothy M. Dittrich, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering.    

One hundred years ago, riding north up Woodward Avenue from Detroit to Pontiac was a voyage from one successful urban landscape to another. Fast forward to 2021, and Pontiac is struggling to reinvent itself after decades of poverty and decay. As quickly as Pontiac shot to stardom so too did its urban light dim, a victim of changing ideas of urban living and changing fortunes to the American automobile industry. Just as Detroit has begun to reinvent itself in the last decade as a model of urban renewal, so too is Pontiac working to develop itself as a new and vibrant city. Some believe the key to turn Pontiac into a city people want to come to is a mix of both private and public sector growth. Carolyn Loh, professor of urban planning at Wayne State University, notes that one of Pontiac’s biggest challenges is “the hollowing out of the city government that has happened over long periods to time, exacerbated by periods of emergency management…So if you offer people the choice of where they can live, if you have a city that can’t fulfill the mandates of city government, it’s a less desirable place to live…” 

Africa has 54 countries, more than one-quarter of the 195 nations on the planet today. The continent is also home to roughly 1.3 billion souls, more than one-sixth of the human population. And despite comprising a large chunk of the community of Homo sapiens, however, Africa is responsible for less than four percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Life being unfair, that isn't going to spare Africans from suffering as a result of man-made global warming. A recent study revealed that Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda and the Mount Kenya massif in Kenya are going to lose their glaciers — the only ones on the entire continent. Losing these iconic natural landmarks isn't the worst thing that will happen to Africa because of climate change — there will be extreme weather events, rising sea levels, economic devastation and more — but there is a melancholy symbolism to their impending disappearance. Climate change isn't a problem caused by all people equally; it is caused mostly by the rich, and since we live in a capitalist world, the suffering will fall disproportionately on the poor. Climate scientists, sociologists and economists are largely in agreement on this point. "The problem is structural and systemic," Dr. David Fasenfest, an American sociologist and associate professor at Wayne State University, told Salon by email. "Capitalist society is geared towards waste and destruction in order to promote consumption while producing at the lowest cost. That requires power and that means without strict restrictions most of the time we use 'dirty' forms of energy like coal that pollutes and promotes climate change." 

From crunchy crickets to nutty fly grubs, NOVA takes a tasty look at insect foods and how they could benefit our health and our warming planet. From Thailand to Texas, insect farmers are showing how the tiny critters stack up as an environmentally friendly alternative to beef protein and can, pound for pound, deliver better nutritional value than the finest steak. But will Americans overcome the “ick” factor and share the appetite of many cultures around the world for insect feasts? Wayne State University Associate Professor Julie Lesnik said, “Our brains run on fat. That extra fat in their diet contributed to supporting this little bit larger brain.” 

Wayne State may be best known for their great Medical and Business schools but tucked away on the 3rd floor of the administration building is a program that’s changing minds and lives and has been doing so for decades. “Very few people know in Detroit, what the Latino community is very aware of is that this center is a legacy of the Civil Rights movement and was established in 1971-72 first as a one-year training program for Latino students,” said Jose Cuello, Associate Professor Emeritus of History and Latino Studies at Wayne State University. uello says, the students at the time demanded more than just a training program at the University. “That turned into what was called the Chicano-Boricua Studies, that means Chicano is the Mexican-American part and the Boricua is the Puerto Rican those were the two strongest populations at the time,” said Cuello. From there Cuello says the center for Latin American studies was born. A program that teaches a diverse group of students not only about their history but identity. “My own personal ideal is that, you cannot just be a Latino, when people ask me who I am I don’t say well I’m a Latino, I’m Mexican, my first identity is human,” Cuello said.  https://cwdetroit.cbslocal.com/2021/10/14/wayne-state-latin-american-center-celebrates-50-years-one-of-the-oldest-of-its-kind-in-the-country/ 

Dangerous social media trends: What can be done to prevent or stop these alarming challenges?  By Farad Javez  Social media challenges can be fun, like the mannequin challenge, or they can even help promote a good cause, like the ALS ice bucket challenge. But then other trends emerge on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok that can be dangerous and, at times, have resulted in serious injuries as well as death. Wayne State University Assistant Professor of Psychology Dr. Hannah Schacter says such challenges may be inevitable as it gives youngsters instant gratification even if they are aware of the consequences. “That kind of social reward of receiving the likes or validations can trigger activation in the same brain region where we might feel the same reward when we eat sugar," said Dr. Schacter. 

By Lisa Brody  The last few years' global calamities sound like eerie passages straight out of from the Bible – a deadly world-wide pandemic, out of control wildfires, droughts, floods, hurricanes, blizzards, earthquakes, extremes of heat and freezing cold, blackouts, political upheaval in several countries, even the reawakening of millions of cicadas descending upon parts of the United States in their once-in-a-17-year cycle. It's enough to make anyone want to hide away in their basement or under the covers and never come out. While most people won't head downstairs forever, increasingly many individuals are preparing for various potential catastrophes, and the possibility they may need to either heed stay at home orders, similar to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, or to get ready to flee their homes for an unknown period of time at a moment's notice. Once referred to as survivalists who chose to live “off the grid,” today those who choose to arrange their lives for any eventuality are called “preppers,” and are not isolated individuals or loners, but everyday folk. Stephanie Hartwell, a sociologist and Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean at Wayne State University, noted that often that understanding comes from undergoing a traumatic event. “It's based on trauma, on the chaotic world we live in,” Hartwell said. “Not everyone want to be the last one left on earth. It's logical based on the political arena, natural disasters, manmade disasters, how the world may be running out of water. How do we make ourselves important in a chaotic world? There is often the seed of trauma, where they have been impacted by something of complexity. There is an understanding of the likelihood of a disaster and the feeling of the need or impulse to prepare. This is a problematic world. We need to prepare for the inevitability. Some of it is human nature, some of it is trauma and fear, and some of it is the inability to control life – like climate change and natural disasters, today's politics. It makes us feel hopeless. It used to be a loner guy with mental health problems living in the woods. But today, many are concerned about the world,” Hartwell continued. “Prepping is a way to try to instill control and safety into their lives. People aren't feeling safe.” 

Saeed Khan, senior lecturer in Near East and Asian studies at Wayne State University, joins a panel to discuss the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan, including the recent attack at Kabul international airport. “The intel had already been predicting this, the U.S. knew about it. The problem was that the U.S. really didn’t have that much rapport with the Taliban, which was in charge of security at Kabul airport. And when you don’t have that kind of credibility with the people who are running the show, it doesn’t make things easy. It’s also important to realize that if there is a group right now that is quite anxious about what happened, it is the Taliban. What this showed is that, despite the fact that they are now the de facto leaders of Afghanistan, they are a little bit inept at being able to provide security, which emboldened not only ISIS-K, but also the Afghan opposition.”  

The nonprofit organization We Hope, Dream, and Believe (WHDAB) has been awarded nearly $400,000 in grant money to restore an Inkster home that Malcolm X once lived in. The home sits on 4336 Williams Street in Inkster. With the money, project organizers hope to turn it into a museum that highlights the life and legacy of the world-renowned human rights activist.

On Monday, President Joe Biden addressed the American people after the United States began evacuating Afghanistan. The Taliban now controls the country and Kabul, its capital city, for the first time since the U.S. invaded the country almost 20 years ago. Saeed Khan is a senior lecturer of Near East and Asian Studies at Wayne State University. Khan says American involvement in the region has a history of nation-building, and many Americans do not realize that the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan predates 9/11. “American involvement, to be accurate, is not just the last 20 years in Afghanistan. It actually goes back to 1979 in our efforts to fight a proxy war against the Soviet invasion there.” He thinks that the U.S. insisting the Taliban not be a part of the new government in any way was a mistake. “So here we find them without bringing the Taliban to the table earlier, understanding that they were not only going to have a seat at the table but that they were going to be dictating perhaps what was going to be on the menu, what needed to occur.”