The most visible recent step backward for Boulder’s racial equity efforts came in March 2019, when a Boulder Police officer tried to arrest Zayd Atkinson, an African American Naropa student, on suspicion of trespassing while picking up trash outside his apartment. Atkinson disputed the officer’s right to arrest him, and he was eventually confronted by nine officers, with guns drawn. The incident sparked a community firestorm and led to a police oversight task force to look at racial bias. The arresting officer resigned.
“It taught me there are some old patterns of oppression and systemic racism that hadn’t ever been addressed until my incident,” said Atkinson, 27. “For some reason, the incident that happened with me seemed to wake up the city.”
Naropa President Charles Lief rushed to support Atkinson. He also said he sensed a moment and an opportunity for Naropa to show leadership on its core values of mindfulness and compassion.
“The gap between the Boulder we think we are and what showed up in Boulder that morning is immense,” Lief said. “The bigger work is how do things like white privilege show up in a community that doesn’t believe white privilege is an issue?”
With humility, Lief acknowledged Naropa has a lot of work to do in this area. However, Naropa has made great strides in recent years to diversify campus, by recruiting staff and students of color and by offering larger financial aid packages.
Boulder’s mayor and city manager invited Naropa to collaborate in creating anti-bias training.
“One result of the issue with Zayd was that all of a sudden Naropa became relevant to the city,” Lief said. The real work is going to require a lot more commitment, starting with leadership, he said. “Is the city willing to model this in a deep way?”
For the time being, Atkinson plans to stay in Boulder, enrolled at Naropa, majoring in Yoga Studies, and feeling the support of many fellow students and faculty, friends and community members.
“I haven’t been part of the community long, but I definitely plan on staying and becoming more and more involved,” he said.
