About 50 students and faculty at the University of Colorado Boulder protested last month in support of Dr. Lupita Montoya, a former assistant professor denied tenure in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Now a research associate at the university, Montoya has been fighting for a review of the decision on her tenure since her case first came up in fall 2016.
At the time, her department came out in favor of her promotion after a split vote. The college of engineering, however, did not.
This didn’t surprise Montoya. She expected to hit a barrier.
“Considering I’m the very first underrepresented minority woman in the history of the whole college … they’ve never seen anybody like me,” she said.
But when the college’s former dean, Dr. Bobby Braun – followed by a campus-level committee – ultimately decided not to recommend her, it was a blow.
“I get emotional,” she said. “This is my livelihood. This is my career. I’ve spent decades building my body of research.”
Montoya said there were procedural errors and discrimination in the handling of her case, and she’s not the only one who believes that.
