OUR VOICE:
COMMUNITY QUOTES

Because our stories matter.

The following are quotes from faculty, staff, alumni, undergraduate and graduate students about their experiences regarding diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging at the University of Denver.

Cover Photo Credit: Chris C.

Being here [DU], I've just really listened to students saying, 'We're taxed and frustrated and pissed off and we run against these walls.' And then at some point, the resiliency in the move forward is just to survive. It's to get the degree and then move on.

I feel like this is one space [colleges/universities] where we really do have to fight for it because of the folks in our communities who had to fight so hard just to get our people in our communities able to go to these universities and then even become faculty in these places.

I have seen this university destroy the mental wellness of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ students. Our experiences on this campus take a toll on our health both physically and mentally. It is exhausting to see those I care about become victims of another system that actively ignores their needs while using them for diversity credits. I want students, regardless of identity, to be able to thrive. We are really good at surviving. But I want to imagine a world where we are happy, healthy, empowered, and blossoming into who we were destined to be. I want the right to simply exist.

I do not have hope in higher-level administrators. I don't have hope in supervisors. I just feel like I'm very pessimistic when it comes to thinking of people in leadership and if they truly fight and do what's necessary to protect the people that they were hired to serve.

It's incredibly demoralizing and isolating to exist at DU as a queer person of color. I'm tokenized as a diversity statistic for PR but my well-being isn't prioritized. Every incident of racism and queerphobia (and there are many) weighs on me. Marginalized folx who speak out are gaslit and harassed. The student body is largely comprised of socioeconomically privileged students who do not care about injustice because they've never experienced it.

I've been in so many situations where staff and administration haven't done anything. So it makes me appreciate whenever someone does do something.

It [administrative inaction] speaks to this culture of never achieving justice on this campus because the people who are working towards it get pushed out. They're tired and don't want to do it anymore and want to be somewhere where they can thrive and live their best life like everybody else.

My heart bleeds for the people of color in that room that had to hear the crap that he [a DU professor] was spewing. My heart hurts for potentially the other queer people in that room who had to hear that.

It's a really suffocating space for change because they're all benefiting from this system of oppression.

If you were to leave then it's just like the problematic people who are in power continue to do what they do.

I definitely think it's time to actually hold our professors accountable of the things that happen inside of their classrooms.

Most students in their time at school won't really talk to administrators or upper people in the system, but they
interact with professors all the time. And I think that keeping the professors accountable that they follow the guides
that we try to set or that are already set is extremely important for making people feel comfortable at this school.

As an RA, I've seen a lot of shitty things happen. A lot of my residents are survivors of sexual assault. A lot of my residents have been discriminated against by the department or by campus safety.I do my best to fight for my residents, to fight for the staff around me to figure out what's wrong in the departments and try to move on it. But I can't really do that if the spaces themselves have become a part of that violence,

There's all kinds of drive by racism that happens on this campus. There's all kinds of homophobia. I wanted to share that because it shouldn't be something that's normal, right? It shouldn't be something that we just kind of say, 'This is normal for this place.'

As a Black person, every time I advocate for myself my student identity is taken. They no longer see me as a student. I'm immediately seen as a threat.

Campus Safety walk around and they're supposed to protect us and that's not what they're doing. They just try to intimidate you. They want to get you in trouble. It's disgusting, you know? And they also think so highly of themselves. They know they have this authority over the students so they exert it the way they want.

I was asked to file a report. That reporting process is no less than 18 steps long. I'm a very busy student and there's something so violent about the reporting process as well. Like, even if I had reported it, I would not have seen any direct response from the university because they require an abundance of reports to take action. Specifically when a faculty member has tenure.

I think that, because of all of my identities, I walk around this campus warily anyways, and I definitely don't feel comfortable walking around on this campus at dark.

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This form is for faculty, staff, alumni, undergraduate and graduate students to share their experiences regarding diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging at the University of Denver.
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OUR VOICE:COMMUNITY QUOTES