Avowed Racist Roderick Nairn is Retiring from CU

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Good riddance to Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs Roderick Nairn, who will retire at the end of this school year after 18 years at the University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz. I know Rod well, worked with him for 13 years, served as his chair when he was my provost, and I want to share his legacy of maintaining racial injustice at CU. Rod came to my home department when he was hired as provost of CU Denver. After years of working together productively, he became an antagonist to my antiracism efforts and was instrumental in blocking my promotion to full professor, eliminating “opportunity hires” meant to improve the racial diversity of CU faculty, and illegally firing me for working with Black colleagues and students in Haiti. While some believe that racial progress is tied to generational turnover, and VC Nairn’s retirement will certainly help in this regard, I share information in this post so the disinfecting light shined on racism will kill viral racism at the University of Colorado. I again encourage VC Nairn to implement the WUSO antiracism resolution before he retires. I will gladly update this post if he does so. I first shared the resolution with him in 2018, but he refused to discuss it with me.

My early work with VC Nairn was positive. We served on the Chancellor’s Athletics Task Force together. A few years later, I was the faculty sponsor, sometimes coach, and sometimes goalie of the CU Denver Ice Hockey Team, the first sports team in CU Denver history. I led the effort to bring club sports and Milo the Lynx to CU Denver, significantly improving student life on campus. I served on the Chancellor’s Equity in Excellence Task Force, where we learned that CU had an abysmal record of student success. Our analyses of admissions and graduation data showed that BIPOC students are underrepresented and underserved at CU Denver. Having a faculty that is overrepresented by white scholars contributed to the racial inequity. For example, the Department of Integrative Biology that Rod and I belonged to (1) never hired a Black professor in their entire history (they still haven’t), (2) failed 50% more BIPOC students than White students, and (3) was led by avowed racist John Swallow. Swallow chaired the Dept of Integrative Biology until he was promoted to Assoc. Dean of (White) Student Success, assuring that systemic racism would continue at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

I have a long history of complaining about racism at CU. When I first complained about racism to VC Nairn, he tried to silence me by asking me not to use the “rhetoric" of "racism and racist”. I informed Rod that I was not being rhetorical, and asked him what term(s) I should use to describe my White supervisor refusing to reward the research and teaching that I was conducting with Black colleagues and students? His response was a silent reddening of the face and afforts to remove me from CU. He signed departmental policies that stopped rewarding my research in Haiti, even though this violated Regental rules and my contract. He later testified under oath that he lacked the authority to overrule Regental policies. These illegal policies were cited by Micheal Greene, Diana Tomback, John Swallow, Brad Stith, and Michael Wunder in their efforts to devalue the excellent work I was accomplishing in Haiti, simply because my Haitian colleagues and students were black. The actioned of these white faculty and administrators had real negative effects on the people of Haiti. VC Nairn lied when he said that my promotion dossier could not be evaluated using the expectations that were in place when I was hired. Nairn refused to look at my accomplishments (many with Black colleagues and students) compared to full professors in my department because he knew that my accomplishments exceeded those of promoted colleagues. For example, Mike Greene was promoted to full professor and chair using a fraudulent publication record.

While VC Nairn oversaw the Office of Equity, I shared my observation that he oversaw the very office that would receive any complaint that I made about racism, including two complaints about the actions of VC Nairn. Essentially, Rod was policing himself. He tried to assure me that my concern was unfounded, and that the Office of Equity often told him things that he did not want to hear. That is, an avowed racist does not want to hear about racial equity. CU’s Office of Equity is a joke. They do not investigate complaints, but make the complainant provide all of the evidence. In the dozen or so complaints that I filed, the Office of Equity never investigated one, including this one that stated “Dr. Cronin's involvement in protected activity caused Provost Nairn to ask Dr. Cronin not to use the "rhetoric" of "racism and racist". This adverse treatment was caused by the protected action in order to dissuade Dr. Cronin from discussing racism.” This complaint meets all of the conditions for a Civil Rights Act violation, yet the Office of Equity that reported to VC Nairn refused to investigate the complaint.

It became very clear to me that VC Nairn wanted me gone because I refused to stop working in Haiti and I refused to remain silent about racism. VC Nairn asked me to take early retirement. He took away my lab. He accepted lies about me and refused to evaluate my promotion dossier. Faced with all of the opposition, I offered to voluntarily leave CU Denver if the Department of Integrative Biology would replace me with their first Black hire. My offer was ignored, I was forced out, and Black students in Biology still do not have a professor that looked like them.

While others praise the contributions that VC Nairn has made at CU Denver/Anschutz over the past 18 years, it should not be forgotten that he did much to maintain racism. An avowed racist is a person who continues their racist ways even after given an opportunity to make corrections. VC Nairn wouldn’t change his ways, but his departure provides an opportunity to replace him with a leader who will seek racial justice at CU, who will take grievances seriously and investigate them appropriately, who will honor contracts and Regental Rules, who will hire more BIPOC faculty, and who will be a champion for the success of BIPOC students. Nelia Viveiros is not this person, and she should not replace VC Nairn. VC Viveiros was complicit in covering up discrimination and retaliation at the Office of Equity, serving as Nairn's "yes person" instead of investigating wrongdoing. The University of Colorado has an antiBlackness problem that needs to be corrected ASAP. Choosing the right replacement for avowed racist Nairn is an important decision for racial equity to be acheived at CU Denver/Anschutz.