The University of Wyoming is imploding in on itself. And while the majority of students will not notice, it threatens racial minority populations in an already hostile state.

Within the past year, administrators within Student Affairs have strategically eliminated Multicultural Affairs, an previously downsized resource. They claim that due to never-ending budget cuts, Multicultural Affairs must be merged into other student resource programs that have very little focus on racial and ethnic minorities. Worst of all, they call this new department CSIL: the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership. A center run by the whitest cluster since the glaciers at Medicine Bow Peak.

One (BIG) problem.

Where are the multicultural students in that?

Easy question. They're not.

These actions are not new at the 7220 school. UWYO Student Affairs removed positions for resources for multicultural students, including an associate dean. They have also forced academic departments to merge, resulting in the loss of minority faculty and staff, and an uncomfortably high rate of willing exodus by professors.

And who benefits?

The budgets? Administrators for downsizing? Serious question.

Those who aren't benefiting are racial minorities. These vulnerable Wyoming students are suddenly at greater risks for dropping out of UWYO than their white counterparts. Losing Multicultural Affairs, a resource providing advisorship, programming, and special advocacy for them, now forces racial minority students to go through a chain of command that cannot understand them to the same degree. Grievances, assistance, and support are now directed through this infamous CSIL.

So what exactly is CSIL?

The merger epidemic across the university planned a consolidation of a variety of student programming. Multicultural Affairs is now run concurrently with Service, Leadership, and Community Engagement (SLCE) offices, the Associated Students of the University of Wyoming (ASUW), Fraternity and Sorority Life (FSL), and others.

Ask yourself: does it make any sense for resources specific to racial minorities be paired with running classist and gendered fraternities? Like, seriously?!

But of course, you're also wondering why any of this matters.

Here's the thing, minority students at UWYO are experiencing a calculated erasure that leaves them without voice, without power, and without motivation to continue. Bigger efforts, like the school's hiring of Dr. Emily Monago, the chief diversity officer, and a relatively progressive university president in Dr. Laurie Nichols have been reversed by mid-level administration's removal of long-time methods that, while flawed, were a gigantic need.

Take CSIL's formation, for example. For months on end, administrators hosted town halls in student centers asking what had been helpful from Multicultural Affairs, what was working for them as students, and how having resources was encouraging them to stay in school--i.e. the ultimate goal. It was all good, until the end of the year, when a larger town hall involving CSIL admin, the Vice President for Student Affairs Sean Blackburn, and others, where they called for the same thing. What had happened to all of the student input that was given throughout the semester? Where they not paying attention? Was nothing being developed? Was there going to be ANY transparency?

Of course not, those same administrators didn't know how things were going to be run either.

So, how can anyone who has felt marginalized or underrepresented have faith in an institution like that?

Naturally, the culture at UWYO goes deeper than that.

Any form of progress in the state of Wyoming largely comes from Laramie. As a college town, Laramie serves as the most cosmopolitan point for Wyomingites. It is the convergence point of minorities, international students, and all other 49 states. It is an exchange of ideas and policy that is followed by the rest of the state, due to UWYO's position as the flagship institution.

That influence has resulted in an extreme cultural polarity. Wyoming's republican roots run deeply red here. And many of them are big donors with pockets deeper than their obsession with coal.

The University of Wyoming, frankly, is controlled by the overall population and the state legislature, which provides massive budgets to the school through energy income. This same condition extends to its student population. For anyone not familiar with Wyoming's whiteness, Wyoming students will appear to know each other, despite having graduated from high school across the state.

That's because they do.

UWYO acts like a white, heteronormative version of high school. A place that is hostile to minorities is heightened by the weight of an entire state behind it.

That influence is manifested in student clubs and organizations, too, not simply an upper echelon influence by Wyoming elites. Nationalistic and discriminatory organizations like TurningPoint USA and a hijacked student media run by right-wing fanatics contribute to a culture where students are in fear, being targeted for national origin or skin color or language ability or citizenship status.

Students have been targeted in their own public spaces, targeted in restaurants and bars, targeted in sporting events, targeted in classrooms. The culture has become so toxic that even professors have directly stated they cannot recommend students of color to attend the University of Wyoming.

And what is being done?

Very little.

Except CSIL, and nobody is near calling that a success.