The team is an integral part of the University of Michigan’s history. It brought the basketball program unprecedented levels of attention, passion, and controversy that still reverberate 25 years on.
Those events were also part of a larger cultural moment that raised difficult questions around race, class, amateurism, and big-time college sports.
A core part of the University of Michigan’s mission is to explore challenging issues like these in civil but unflinching ways. At U-M’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, which hosted this event, we believe that the liberal arts offer us ways to learn from even the most complex and challenging issues. The anniversary of a seminal moment in the University’s history made this the right time and place to look back at the Fab Five’s legacy—what it meant then, and what it means now.