Former psychology adjunct instructor Jennifer Miller sought early retirement when CMU administration allegedly asked her to censor coursework. This decision was made at the end of the fall semester following an informal student concern about Miller expressed to President Marshall during his open office hours that was escalated to Academic Affairs. Miller said that a student in the SOCI-101 class, Introduction to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies, raised concern over two comments she made on the first day of class.

In response, Miller retired. She said she planned on retiring after the spring 2026 semester anyways, but this prompted her to act sooner.

“I don’t want to fight this battle for one more semester,” Miller said.

Miller has been a teacher and activist for the queer community for nearly four decades and said that this was the hardest thing they have endured as a teacher. Miller was an adjunct at CMU for eight years.

This reporting comes off the heels of a letter to the editor submission by Miller to the Criterion on Jan. 8. There were direct and specific claims made about the situation and toward Marshall in that letter.

Currently, there is an active internal investigation being conducted by CMU regarding the situation. After reading Miller’s letter to the editor, Marshall sought advice from members of the CMU Board of Trustees and decided that an investigation was the best course of action. He said that there are some aspects of Miller’s letter that are untrue but did not explicitly identify them.

“I think out of an abundance of humility and a deep desire to get things right, I think you read a concerning letter like that, you say, ‘Wow, that’s, that’s unusual. Let’s be sure,’” Marshall said.

Since there are no formal complaints documented from a student, faculty or other CMU employee to be resolved, Marshall said that, with this investigation, “we’re going way above and beyond.”

This investigation is being conducted by English professor Dr. Kurt Haas, Title IX Coordinator Stephanie Rubenstein, and CMU Board of Trustees Member Daniel Ramos. Marshall said they were chosen out of practicality and for their experience regarding situations like this.

Haas was once a department head and the Assistant Vice President “for taking student complaints” according to Marshall, which gives him an in-depth knowledge of the appropriate processes intended to handle student concerns and complaints about professors.

Marshall said Rubenstein was chosen because she is well-versed in the anti-discrimination law as laid out in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Ramos was approached because he is an advocate for the LGBT community, having served as the Executive Director for One Colorado, which his trustee profile describes as “the state’s leading advocacy organization for LGBTQ Coloradans and their families.”

No people external to CMU are part of this ongoing investigation.

Although they were not directly named in Miller’s letter, an interview with her revealed that in the only formal meeting with Miller regarding the student complaint, there were three other people present; all of whom were approached for interviews.

Because of the investigation, Department Head of Social and Behavioral Sciences Dr. Erika Jackson had previously agreed to an interview, however is now “not currently able to speak on the matter.”

The Criterion requested an interview with Assistant Vice President of Faculty Success Dr. Chad Middleton, to which he agreed, but only if he could respond in writing to a list of questions sent via email. Middleton has not yet replied. An interview was also requested with Assistant Department Head of Social and Behavioral Sciences Dr. Eliot Jennings, but he has not yet responded.

What is being investigated by CMU is not the content of the informal student complaint or the course materials for SOCI-101, but rather the process by which the informal complaint was handled and communicated to Miller.

Miller said that she only received one email regarding the student concerns from Jackson, which was a meeting request with no other context besides: “we need to have a meeting concerning a student.”

“I was under the impression I was going there as a professor to talk about a student, but what—the truth was the moment that I was in the meeting, I was told that it was about my behavior and a complaint against me,” Miller said.

She said felt misled about the nature of the meeting and that it was unfair, especially as a person with autism, to position her against three of her superiors without an opportunity to prepare or bring an advocate to the meeting.

When asked about the situation directly, Marshall said that he was not able to comment on details because he did not want to impede the ongoing internal investigation, but that the student concern was handled the same as all others.

“Did we escalate this differently than we would have another student concern? I don’t think so,” Marshall said. “From my perspective, it looks and seems to me like a normal student concern came forward and we ran through the normal channels. And so that’s what we want to verify–is that it was handled appropriately.”

Marshall said he gets probably about one student concern per week during his weekly open office hours on Mondays from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m.

Miller said that she does not know who the student is, nor does it matter. She is not pursuing the situation beyond the letter that she sent to the Criterion. As for SOCI-101, Research Services Coordinator Emerson Meinhart is slated to take it over for the spring 2026 semester.