When Aaron Campbell was appointed to be an assistant professor of special education at the University of Missouri in 2023, she became the first Black tenure-track faculty member in her department.
Campbell is one in a cohort of Black professors at MU that has technically increased in the last decade, but only by a small amount in relation to the rest of the professors: from 2013 to 2023, the proportion of Black professors on campus rose by less than a percentage point — from just over 3% to 3.78%, according to data collected from the National Center for Education Statistics.
By comparison, the total number of professors at the university grew by about 10% during the same period.
According to the 2020 census, 12.4% of Missouri’s population is Black — an indication that the number of Black faculty at MU is not representative of the broader state.
“I definitely think that people pay a lot more attention to race at Mizzou than they do at other institutions,” Campbell said. “I’ve had students tell me I’m not only [their] first Black professor, but first Black teacher ever.”
University officials declined an interview for this story. In a written statement, spokesperson Christopher Ave said the university “does not tolerate discrimination or harassment on our campus. All reported cases are investigated, and individuals who violate our policies or the law are held accountable. Potential consequences for those who commit such violations include being trespassed from campus, expelled from the university and charged with a crime.”
According to self-reported data on MU Analytics, in fall 2025, there were just 85 Black faculty out of 2,231 total professors — about 3.8% of the professoriate. From that number, just 36 have tenure or tenure-track status, compared to 1,000 professors total with the ranking.
Campbell said she has become a support for Black students who seek her help — even those she’s never had in class. Though she used to recommend that students report discrimination to the Office of Institutional Equity, Campbell said she no longer does because she’s been disappointed by the outcomes.
“I realized that office is actually not [there] to help the student, and it’s not to help the faculty,” Campbell said. “It is just there to stand on the side of HR and help fight whoever is mad.”
The treatment of students she’s observed has led Campbell to question staying at MU. She’s also factored in messaging she’s received from other Black faculty, whom she says mostly work from home.
“You need to stay out the way, girl, stay out the way if you want your check,” Campbell recalled other Black professors telling her when she asked why they work remotely. “That’s literally what they say: ‘I survived here that long because I stay out the way.’”
A ‘mass exodus’
Despite the technical increase in Black faculty at MU, former professors still describe what’s felt like a “mass exodus” in recent years.
Stephen Graves left his professorship in the Black studies department in 2022, after at least six other colleagues departed within six months.
When he started his postdoctoral research at MU in 2016, after a year of anti-racism protests on campus that received national attention in 2015, Graves said he and other Black faculty were optimistic.
The student group Concerned Student 1950, which led the calls for change in 2015, listed in its demands that, “by the academic year 2017-2018, the University of Missouri increases the percentage of black faculty and staff campuswide to 10%.”
“Okay now, this is our chance to kind of strike while the iron is hot,” Graves said. “There’s actually some momentum there, and I think that was their feeling inside. And I think that was true and genuine.”
But a political science professor called him an “activist” at one of his first faculty meetings, and Graves said he quickly realized that MU’s push for change felt like “a facade.”
“I could tell right then that I was going into a situation where there was a climate that was not going to be conducive to progress,” Graves said.
This story was provided through a partnership between The St. Louis American and St. Louis Public Radio.