This Santa Cruz college has 1 full-time Black professor. Why diversity remains a struggle

AT CABRILLO COLLEGE near Santa Cruz, Nikia Chaney stands out. You can spot her bright pink hair from a distance. She’s also the only Black professor out of the community college’s 165 tenured or tenure-track faculty.

“When I first got hired in 2019, I didn’t look up the demographics of the school or anything like that. I was just really happy I had a full time job,” she said. But after arriving on campus, she started to feel isolated. “You don’t have faculty members who look like you,” she said.