There is a well-worn tactic in the playbook of institutional fragility and power that I want you to recognize—both as a matter of academic freedom and as a contribution to the evolving scholarship in leadership studies. When someone from a historically marginalized community—or simply someone who dares to lead with clarity, courage, and a commitment to equity—rises to leadership and refuses to be deferential, the machinery of “process” is quietly activated. An investigation is launched. A law firm is hired. A narrative is constructed. And what follows is rarely about justice—it’s about control.

This pattern is not unique to education. It plays out in business, nonprofit, and government sectors alike—anywhere power feels threatened by a voice that challenges the status quo. Understanding this cycle is essential, not just to defend those targeted, but to dismantle the systems that enable the silencing of courageous, bold, justice-driven leadership.

It begins, always, in the same way: a supposed breach of policy or decorum, often vague, sometimes novel, becomes the spark. The institution doesn’t need certainty, just enough smoke to justify a fire. And once the investigation begins, the outcome is often already decided. The process isn’t really about finding truth. It’s about justifying a conclusion that those in power have quietly settled on: this leader must go.

The Pattern: Investigations as Control

For “uppity minorities”— and others who refuse to be ornamental, who challenge racism, demand accountability, or advocate for equity— the modern investigation is what the blacklist, the backroom deal, or the closed-door whisper once was.

These processes are designed to appear neutral, legalistic, and procedural. But make no mistake: they are political. These are not impartial quests for truth. They are institutional tools to discipline, discredit, or destroy.

• When leaders raise equity concerns about spending priorities or hiring practices…
• When they resist rubber-stamping privilege-centered traditions…
• When they mobilize support from outside the institution, lifting their voice above the sanctioned whisper…
• When they draw too much attention for record-breaking success that disrupts the narrative of who is allowed to lead…

They become threats. And in response, power does what it has always done: it clothes retaliation in legitimacy.

Case in Point: Regent Wanda James and CU Boulder

The current situation unfolding at the University of Colorado is a chilling illustration. Wanda James, the first Black regent in CU’s history, has been under formal investigation for allegedly violating university policies by advocating against a racist marijuana prevention campaign that targeted Black children. As both a cannabis entrepreneur and elected regent, James publicly criticized the CU campaign. Especially one image featuring a Black infant with a noose-like cord. She later raised her concerns with a state cannabis policy staffer, not the governor himself, and only after the funding for the ad campaign had already been withdrawn.

Yet, her colleagues claimed conflict of interest. They hired an outside law firm. They launched a $500,000 investigation. But here’s what’s essential to understand: that decision—to launch the review—was not made neutrally. It was made by the same group of people who had grown visibly uncomfortable with James’ forthrightness, her power, her popularity, and her refusal to play by the old rules of quiet compliance.

Despite the lone Latino regent being opposed to the inquiry and the Governor of Colorado explicitly stating he never had a conversation with James, the investigation moved forward anyway. No actual harm has been demonstrated. No rule clearly broken. Just the spectacle of a probe.

And once an organization reaches the point of hiring a law firm, the investigation often becomes less about facts and more about optics. The law firm “investigation” process typically serves at least three goals for organizational leaders:

1. To win the PR battle by appearing responsive and rigorous.
2. To control the narrative while the “investigated” individual is muzzled under specific threats from the law firm.
3. To protect themselves against future litigation, even as they quietly build a case to justify the censure or termination they already want.

James’ allies—Black Democrats, equity advocates, and community leaders—have sounded the alarm. They have posited that this situation isn’t about policy. It’s about punishing a Black woman who had the audacity to be brilliant, entrepreneurial, and morally clear. It’s about sending a message: speak up, and we’ll make you pay for it.

Other Cases, Same Playbook

Regent Wanda James is not alone. In fact, her case is part of a broader pattern—one that has unfolded at institutions across the country.

Consider these echoes:

• Dr. Claudine Gay at Harvard: After withstanding months of harassment from DC right-wing activists and donors, she was subjected to an internal investigation triggered by politicized claims of plagiarism. What began as coordinated outrage culminated in institutional distancing, not defense. She resigned, but only after becoming a lightning rod for political weaponization.
• Dr. Frances Contreras, Dean of the College of Education at UC Irvine: After speaking up for faculty diversity and criticizing institutional practices that marginalized students and staff of color, she became the subject of an opaque and chilling investigation. Accused by unnamed complainants and placed on administrative leave without clear justification, she was essentially silenced in the name of “process.” The university insisted it was just doing due diligence—but the result was predictable: her leadership, voice, and moral clarity were removed from the equation.
• Dr. Nicole Hannah-Jones at UNC: Denied tenure despite meeting all requirements, she was the subject of whispered concerns, internal inquiries, and procedural delays—until the pressure campaign forced the university to backpedal. But the damage was done.

In each case, the pattern holds: the courageous voice becomes the investigated target. Allegations become headlines. And the institution pretends that “we’re just following process,” even as that process is weaponized for political or cultural conformity.

The Price of Leadership While Black (or Brown, or Queer or Equity-focused)

What’s especially cruel is that these investigations are rarely about performance. In fact, most of these investigated Uppity Minorities and equity-focused leaders are excellent at their jobs. They expand access. They build trust. They innovate.

What makes them dangerous is not incompetence. It’s influence.

For uppity minorities and equity-focused leaders— those who don’t shrink, who don’t apologize for their success (e.g. setting all-time institutional records), who build external constituencies and name racial animus where it lives—the cost of leadership is always higher. The margin for error is smaller. The patience of colleagues thinner. The room to dissent, to be human, to learn or misstep is practically nonexistent.

When the investigation begins, it quickly becomes a one-sided war—a carefully choreographed assault masquerading as a neutral inquiry. While you’re scrambling to find legal representation, assess the allegations, and comply with institutional procedures, your opponents are already several moves ahead. They’re quietly marshaling selective evidence, shaping narratives, and seeding carefully crafted talking points across the community, the board, and other influential stakeholders—donors, media contacts, advocacy groups, and even future employers.

In this staged theater of accountability, you are expected to stay silent “out of respect for the process,” while they exploit the vacuum of your voice to tell a version of events that is partial at best and malicious at worst. Those receiving this curated story—colleagues, board members, students, alumni, politicians—rarely get the full truth. They hear only what’s been shaped for them: a faux scandal without context, a controversy without complexity. They don’t see the deeper institutional dynamics (e.g. an open executive leadership role), the fragility of racialized opinion inside the organization, the resistance to equity, or the long history of silencing anyone who dares to challenge power while Black, Brown, Indigenous, queer, or equity-minded.

While you are asked to remain silent by the law firm in the name of due process, they fuel fires of outrage—outrage not grounded in facts, but in optics, fear, and discomfort with your presence and your power. They trade in whispers and weaponized ambiguity. And by the time you’re finally permitted to speak—if that opportunity ever comes—the narrative has already hardened. The story has calcified in public memory. You are no longer seen as a complex, principled leader. You are a headline. A cautionary tale. An “issue.” Or worse, rumors circulate, suggesting there must have been some kind of scandal—because why else would there be an investigation?

And in the court of public opinion, silence reads as guilt—even when that silence was forced upon you.

Truth or Theater?

Let’s be honest: most investigations launched against uppity minorities and equity-driven leaders of color are less about facts and more about fear. Fear that the institution is changing too fast. Fear that the old rules don’t hold anymore. Fear that someone might actually call out the quiet racism, the pay disparities, union busting, the generational gatekeeping. So, they bring in outside counsel.They commission a “review.”

And suddenly, the same people who almost NEVER held anyone accountable for past ethical failures (including their own) become very concerned with policy manuals and fiduciary duty. But when we look back, these moments will be judged not by their technicalities, but by their intent. Were they about equity—or control? Were they about action—or silencing? Were they about truth—or retaliation?

What Must Be Done?

If we are to break this cycle, we must do more than protest individual cases—we must name the pattern. That’s what I’ve sought to do here, both as a matter of academic freedom and scholarship in educational leadership. We must build a public and institutional memory that does not fall for the same institutional fragility playbook over and over again.

That means:

• Demanding transparency: If investigations are launched, the process must be public, and so must the standards being used.
• Calling out selective enforcement: If similar behaviors went unpunished for white or male leaders, then the disparity must be highlighted.
• Building rapid-response coalitions: Leaders under attack need allies who speak out early and often. Silence is complicity.
• Training the next generation to be ready: We must prepare future leaders of color and equity-minded leaders for this gauntlet—not with fear, but with strategy.

Final Thought: They Investigate Because You Matter

To every “uppity minority” and equity-minded leader who has been targeted, investigated, or pushed out: know this. They don’t come for the meek. They don’t investigate the forgettable. They investigate because your voice moved something. Because your presence made a difference. Because your leadership scared them into reasserting control.

But remember what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught us: “The ultimate measure of a [person] is not where [they] stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where [they] stand at times of challenge and controversy.” You are standing in that challenge—not alone, not defeated, but in the tradition of every truth-teller who made power uncomfortable.

James. Gay. Nicole-Jones. Contreras. These leaders did not fall from grace—they were pushed by those who never welcomed their presence in the first place. Their courage threatened the comfort of institutions more invested in control than in justice.

But if we—not just those directly targeted, but ALL who believe in equity, truth, and dignity—keep standing up, keep calling it out, and keep protecting one another, then the playbook won’t work anymore. The tactics of silencing, isolating, and investigating equity-driven voices will lose their grip.

And they’ll have to find another way to reckon with the power we build together—the power of solidarity, of courage, and of refusing to be silent in the face of injustices.

Please share.

Read More from the Uppity Minority Series by Julian Vasquez Heilig:

• The Uppity Minority: Executive Leadership, Power, and the Price of Speaking Up
• The Uppity Minority: How They Will Come for You, Be Ready
• The Uppity Minority: Radioactive or Ready?
• The Uppity Minority: Is Resigning the Right Thing to Do?
• The Uppity Minority: When the White Ally Isn’t
• The Uppity Minority: Hunted, Surveilled and Secretly Recorded
• The Uppity Minority: When the Betrayal Comes From Inside the House