Luis Vargas used to be one of relatively few faculty of color at Denver’s Regis University, until, he says, he was pushed out this fall after filing a series of complaints alleging racial discrimination within the school’s Division of Counseling and Family Therapy.

Vargas, a full professor, is Puerto Rican and had worked at the Jesuit university since 2015, serving as the faculty adviser for a network of students of color on campus.

During that time, Vargas said, he faced racially discriminatory comments from his colleagues about being from “the barrio” — the Spanish-speaking part of a town, often associated with high poverty levels — among other offenses, like being treated differently from his white colleagues and facing hostility when speaking up about his allegations of discriminatory treatment.

“My concern is that the university just got the (federal) Hispanic-Serving Institution designation, and the Division of Counseling and Family Therapy is poorly equipped to work with BIPOC students without hurting them,” said Vargas, referring to Black, Indigenous and other people of color. “They tokenize faculty and they harm students.”

Regis officials said they could not comment on the specifics of Vargas’s case, but noted the university focuses on inclusive hiring and retention of faculty who are underrepresented on campus, and takes equity, diversity and inclusivity seriously.

Vargas’s experience is one of several recent instances in which faculty of color or their supporters have been outspoken about departures or job demotions at some of the state’s largest universities, including the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Denver and Metropolitan State University of Denver.

These exoduses or reductions in duties of marginalized faculty have prompted outcry and nuanced conversations about the racism that can exist in scholarly spaces, as well as the insidious nature of feeling discriminated against because of race in a field that so often prides itself on its inclusive ideals.

At the same time, university leaders acknowledged to The Denver Post that the departures of faculty of color have spurred their institutions to reflect and make necessary changes to strengthen retention.

How does racism show up in Colorado academia and what can universities do to address retention problems for professors of color?

Listen and understand the added barriers and workload that come with being one of the few — and work to counteract that inequity, said Apryl Alexander, one of three Black professors whose departure from DU last year ignited discussions about how to better retain academics of color who are forced to navigate the historically white bureaucracies of higher education.

Alexander, who now works as an associate professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said none of her students are interested in pursuing a career in academia because they see “the toxicity underrepresented folks are going through.”

“I worry what’s going to happen if we keep losing people,” Alexander said. “You’re not going to have that representation.”

Working on retention

This fall, a 48-page document made the rounds within CU Boulder’s School of Education, eventually filtering onto the internet and becoming public.

The so-called “Shadow Report” — written by two CU graduate students — alleged there was a racially hostile climate at the education school due to microaggressions, misogyny, gossip and the “weaponization of white fragility,” conditions the authors said led four women of color on the faculty to feel they were forced out.

The document demanded the four women, who were not identified, receive formal apologies and financial reparations for the conditions they endured, and that the school do a better job teaching culturally competent curriculum.

About a week after the public fallout from the report, the dean of CU’s School of Education, Kathy Schultz, stepped down to return to the faculty, citing the need to help the school move past “recent challenges” related to the women’s departures.

Schultz spoke with The Post in September before she resigned, saying the departure of the four women of color prompted a re-examination and improvement of the education school’s recruitment and retention practices. She said there were several inaccuracies in the document, but didn’t elaborate when asked.

Regardless, she said, four women of color leaving the faculty in a short period was concerning.

Going forward, Schultz said the school needed to make clear that service demands — the need for faculty to serve on different kinds of academic committees —  in teacher education are high.

“In terms of recruitment, it’s important for us to be very honest about the service demands of the school and also in terms of what it’s like to be an assistant professor here,” Schultz said.

Most of the hires made in the education school while Schultz was dean were faculty of color, she said.

CU officials did not provide a breakdown of the School of Education’s faculty. But about 2% of CU Boulder’s overall instructional faculty was Black in 2018, according to university data. That percentage stayed roughly the same in 2022. About 5% of the instructional faculty identified as Hispanic or Latino in 2018 compared to about 7% in 2022.

Those groups are underrepresented, however, compared to their percentages among the general population. Statewide, about 5% of Colorado’s population is Black and about 22% is Hispanic or Latino, according to 2022 Census data.

“The part we need to work on is retention,” Schultz said. “We’ve begun to work on these issues and are sincerely committed to working toward an inclusive and anti-racist climate here. We want to look at faculty loads to make sure service and teaching loads are equitable across race and gender.”

An unequal workload

Alexander pointed to workload inequities as a large part of why she left DU.

“Faculty of color who get hired are often set up to fail because they end up not being supported,” she said.

At DU, about 4% of appointed faculty members in 2022 were Black, compared to about 2% in 2018, according to institutional data. About 7% of appointed faculty identified as Hispanic or Latino in 2018, a figure that stayed about the same in 2022.

Faculty of color often are asked to do more service work, Alexander said. In a bid to be equitable, leadership seeks out faculty of color to serve on committees for hiring searches, curriculum decisions, diversity and inclusion, and beyond. When there are few faculty of color to begin with, those commitments stack up, she said.

Faculty of color are an asset to students of color who can find mentorship and inspiration in seeing someone like them, she said, but mentorship, while rewarding, is another responsibility.

Plus, when faculty of color do speak up in professional spaces, providing the diverse perspectives they were asked to, they can be labeled as “troublemakers” and met with hostility, Alexander said.

Vargas, the former Regis professor, said he constantly was antagonized when he pushed back or offered his thoughts on race-related topics in his department.

He said he was pushed out by Regis leadership after refusing to teach a diversity course he felt was forced upon him. Vargas said his departure felt like retaliation for filing complaints with the university alleging he’d faced racism at the school.

“The treatment I received is a testament to how the division treats people of color in general — without much regard for their humanity,” Vargas said.

Nicki Gonzales, Regis’s vice provost for diversity and inclusion and professor of history, politics and political economy, said that diversity, equity and inclusion are at the core of the Jesuit institution’s mission.

“Some of us, especially faculty and administrators of color, know what it’s like to have gone through college, graduate school and feel a responsibility to create a university environment in which all students can reach their potential,” Gonzales said. “That’s why I’m here.”

Impacts felt by students, too

The racism faculty members contend with can trickle down to students, said Elizabeth Reyes, a 21-year-old Chicano studies major at MSU Denver.

Earlier this month, Dean John Masserini removed Professor Adriana Nieto as chair of MSU’s Department of Chicana/o Studies, prompting swift protest and outrage among Nieto’s students, who said she was an outspoken advocate for students of color on campus.

The removal was first reported by student news outlet Met Media.

Masserini wrote a letter to faculty in which he accused Nieto of “unprofessional behavior,” having a “disruptive” tone and a tendency to “emphasize a negative viewpoint.” The letter cited a November incident in which Nieto allegedly made “rude comments” toward the Office of Human Resources.

“Dr. Nieto told me as women of color, we know what we’re up against,” Reyes said. “We know a lot of things are going to get in the way, but it’s on us to have the resilience and motivation and dedication for ourselves. She was empathetic, and I found myself relighting my fire to keep going. She moved me.”

Nieto declined to comment for this story.

Students held signs of support for Nieto during MSU Denver’s Latinx graduation last week and have organized a call to action regarding Nieto’s demotion.

On Thursday, Marie Mora, MSU Denver’s interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, issued a statement saying her office will immediately begin a review of the policies and processes related to the appointments of all department chairs, including the removal of Nieto.

“It is important to know that we hear the student and faculty concerns regarding Dr. Adriana Nieto’s removal from her administrative position as department chair,” Mora wrote. “However, we will not publicly share details of any employee’s performance. That said, I would like to acknowledge and recognize that Dr. Nieto is a highly valued and respected faculty member, advocate and scholar of Chicana/o Studies.”

The value of perseverance

More than a year after Alexander and three of her former colleagues of color in DU’s Graduate School of Professional Psychology left, Provost Mary Clark said the university devoted serious attention, energy and resources to the issues raised by their departures.

“We’ve done considerable work around workload equity,” Clark said. “We have asked all deans to lead discussions in that regard.”

Some units have developed dashboards, Clark said, to track who is doing what amount of service work. The deans, Clark said, were tasked with developing an action plan due at the end of this year.

“I think the over-arching question is one of belonging — of feeling welcomed and valued and embraced — and that’s something I’ve given a lot of attention to,” Clark said. “I’m mindful that, historically, there might have been a somewhat narrow swath of faculty who were celebrated by our university and others. The spotlight shone brightly on a narrow set of individuals and what I’ve sought to do is broaden that spotlight and shift it to a certain extent on our faculty of color.”

Clark agreed that “invisible labor” — the overtaxed faculty who get saddled with extra committees, mentorships and other tasks on top of teaching because of their marginalized identity — was a problem.

“I’m particularly committed to making sure that our faculty of color, staff of color, students of color feel DU is a home where they are supported and embraced to realize their hopes and dreams,” Clark said.

Despite the hardships, Alexander hasn’t given up on academia just yet.

While she has considered leaving the field before, she said she has her sights set on bigger goals — and being a part of a positive change.

“I still see the value of being here,” Alexander said. “Of training the next generation. The… visibility and platform still feel very important. I think there can be a bigger change.”

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