Two students in Professor Michelle Adams’s Race, Law and History class were so inspired by class readings on school desegregation that they launched a digital project to extend and share their learnings.
Now, they hope their work will in turn inspire others to create similar projects all around the country.
Michelle Landry, who graduated in December, and 2L Victoria Pedri were particularly struck by excerpts from Adams’s new book, The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North.
The book explores Milliken v. Bradley, the Detroit school desegregation case “that ended the Brown v. Board of Education era,” as Adams says, by allowing government-supported segregation to continue.
“School segregation is something you can see when you’re growing up,” Landry said. “To not only read about that and relate to it, but to hear all our fellow students who had similar experiences, was really powerful and made me see that more could be done in the realm of advocacy on this subject.”
“We felt very moved by the book excerpt that [Adams] had shared, and we asked to read more of it,” Pedri recalled. “A lot of law school experiences focus on legal research and history—the traditional academia—which makes sense. But we wanted to do something a little bit more than that, connecting the research to real-life events and getting it out to people.”
Their initial concept was an interactive map that would highlight the history of segregation across the United States, as well as actionable suggestions on improving conditions today. That proved to be too ambitious, so they refocused on a detailed digital timeline of school integration efforts in Detroit.
“They took my book, and they added other existing sources, and they built out this amazing, beautiful digital timeline that gives the history of Detroit and school segregation, including some events that are outside of the book,” Adams said.
The project became a semester-long independent study for the two students, with some technical help from the University’s digital scholarship team.
“They did a great job,” Adams said. “It’s beautiful, and it also shows what students on their own initiative can do. It’s not the typical independent study.”
The timeline does include some of the advocacy information the students initially envisioned. And they still haven’t given up on the idea of a nationwide map.
“[Landry] and I are in conversation with some of those national advocates that we spoke to,” Pedri said. “They’re interested in taking this and continuing it. That’s still a possibility.”
Landry and Pedri have been invited to speak on their project as part of the opening session at the Fifth National Conference on School Diversity, “State of Integration Live!” on February 28 at Georgetown University.
The students said they found the experience of creating the timeline enriching in several ways.
“I gained a better understanding of school integration, especially in Detroit,” Landry said. “With the assistance of Professor Adams, we were able to understand the national context as well.
“We also got all the connections to people who are passionate about this work and are on the ground right now. Seeing those people was really powerful to me personally, to see how much work has gone into this in the decades that has followed.”
“I was surprised by some of Michigan’s earlier history,” Pedri added. “Michigan was fairly progressive in the late 1800s, early 1900s. What happened? Detroit schools are essentially still segregated today. How do we get that, when Michigan’s first integrated school was in the late 1800s?
“[Adams] is visionary in this field, and it was amazing to work with her and be able to contribute something unique and helpful for others. I hope people know that the fight for integration isn’t over. It feels like something that’s passed, but it still is happening now, and there’s more we can do.”
With photos, videos, and news clippings, the Detroit School Integration Timeline offers an incredible opportunity to learn more about this period in Detroit history.
Deeper dive: 5Qs with Michelle Adams on Detroit desegregation
Written for a general audience, Adams’s book—The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North (Macmillan, 2025)—is the product of more than 10 years of research and writing. As an expert in race and the law who was born in Detroit, Adams had long been interested in the Milliken case.
“The more reading I did, the more interested I got. At some point I decided that there was a story that I wanted to read,” Adams said. “I knew that if it was a story that I wanted to read, then I had a shot at having it be a story that other people might be interested in as well.”
