This post originally appeared at https://www.bootsandsabers.com/2023/12/22/employee-allegedly-forced-out-because-of-her-race-at-uw-eau-claire/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=employee-allegedly-forced-out-because-of-her-race-at-uw-eau-claire
A University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire staff member sued her employer over being ousted from a position in a campus diversity office allegedly for being “White.”
The lawsuit alleges that when Rochelle Hoffman was promoted to UW-Eau Claire’s interim director of the campus’s Multicultural Student Services office, the school’s former Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Student Affairs Olga Diaz was told by students that a White woman was not fit to preside over a position intended to serve students of color.
“You hired a white woman as the Interim Director?” one student was cited in a federal complaint against the university.
Per the complaint, another student asked, “Do you personally feel white staff can do as effective a job as a person of color, within a space for people of color?”
Hoffman said she felt compelled to resign last year after eight months of intense hostility and staff questioning her “legitimacy” after being promoted to interim director of the campus’s Multicultural Student Services office, the complaint states.