In September, a group of University of Denver students organized a peaceful demonstration to protest the school’s “Pioneer” nickname.

The university responded last week to that demand and several others made by the Righteous Anger Healing Resistance. The demands were also included in a resolution by the university’s Undergraduate Student Government.

But the group has decried DU’s response, which included rejecting a handful of the demands, saying the response “represents the University of Denver’s violent commitment to colonialism and white supremacy.”

RAHR organizer Hayden Evans, a fourth-year student, told the DU Clarion in September the name glorifies people who had a role in genocide and taking land from Native people, and reinforces the trauma of that history.

The group also circulated a list of seven demands of the university: Changing the Pioneers moniker, creation of a Critical Race and Ethnic Studies department, a student representative on the Board of Trustees by December, reconstitution of the Native American Advisory Board, engagement with Native communities through programs such as scholarships and mentorship,  hiring and retaining more faculty members of color, and severing all ties with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a statement posted to Facebook on Oct. 21 — the same day DU published its response from chancellor Jeremy Haefner —  RAHR said organizers had met with Haefner that morning. In its lengthy written response, the university acknowledged the controversy surrounding the Pioneers mascot but said DU will continue to use it.

“What we unconditionally denounce is the tragic violence and injustice against Native people denoted by the term pioneer,” reads the statement.

“What we avow is the pioneering spirit — the courage and resilience to think and act boldly; to break through barriers as explorers, innovators, and frontrunners into the future.”

Evans, the RAHR organizer, said he believes keeping the Pioneer name has more to do with placating those with control over the university’s funding, who want the nickname retained, than debate over the name’s connotations.

Full funding “is really dependent on a good relationship with the alumni and the Board of Trustees, who basically are the two funding bodies of the university. There is a large group of alumni who are pushing very hard for the retention of the Pioneer nickname,” Evans said.

“The university being able to keep itself funded has a lot to do with it. And that financial risk is not something that the university wants to do.”

The university also declined to sever ties with ICE and detention facilities.

The response says DU doesn’t cooperate with immigration actions unless ordered to by a court or other “similar process,” and doesn’t share employee information without consent or unless required by law.

“The demand to divest from any and all ties with correctional facilities is a complex issue with no simple solution, and the University will not be able to fulfill these expectations,” says the response.

It goes on to say some faculty members do scholarly research involving the prison system that tends to focus on rehabilitation and well-being of people serving sentences, and some students want to pursue careers in law enforcement or corrections.

“Severing all ties with these facilities would adversely affect these goals and negatively impact incarcerated persons by reducing their access to valuable resources and relationships.”

Evans said that during a conversation between RAHR and Haefner, he said he felt Haefner’s explanations of when the law requires cooperation with ICE and the concept of a sanctuary campus came across as condescending, because group members had already done much of that education work before they met with him.

The university response also says DU does not plan to add a student, faculty or staff member to the Board of Trustees.

Haefner’s letter instead points to the Board of Trustees Committee on Learning and Student Success, on which undergraduate and graduate student representatives sit, and says Haefner and Board Chair Denise O’Leary “will ask CLASS to provide input and new ideas on the best way forward.”

But to Evans, the CLASS committee is not an equal substitute for student representation on the Board of Trustees. The committee has no voting power, and he said, such committees don’t always have a lot of diversity.

“Structurally, it just seems like a way to hear voices but not give them power. That’s just my opinion,” Evans said. “Also, where is sort of the intentional centering of marginalized students in that?”

In response to RAHR’s other demands, the university’s statement says it will schedule new meetings with the current Native American Community Advisory Board.

It is made up of the DU community and representatives of Native nations, including the Cheyenne, Arapaho and Ute nations.

The response also says the university will place flags received as gifts from several Native nations in its Community Commons.

In response to RAHR’s request for more hiring and retention of faculty of color, Haefner’s letter pointed to an increase in full-time faculty of color from 14% to 20% since 2014.

He says the university is in the process of hiring a Black Experience coordinator for developing practices to hire and retain Black faculty. DU also has an Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

RAHR has posted several statements on social media expressing the group’s disapproval of DU’s responses.

“Aside from committing to fulfill a handful of recommendations made in the John Evans report in 2014, there was no commitment to fulfilling any of our demands in full,” reads a statement posted to Facebook on Oct. 21.

John Evans was the founder of DU and of Northwestern University. He served as governor of the Colorado Territory and the territorial superintendent of Indian affairs when the Sand Creek Massacre took place, an 1864 incident in which Colorado militia attacked and killed about 160 members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes.

A study committee organized several years ago by DU faculty found Evans culpable for the massacre in his leadership as superintendent of Indian affairs.

An email from Haefner to the DU community outlining DU’s response “represents the University of Denver’s violent commitment to colonialism and white supremacy,” says RAHR’s statement.

“DU’s continued perpetuation of harm and failure to meet our demands is unacceptable and we will not allow these actions to go unchecked.”

Another recent Facebook post from the group includes a photo, dated 1979, of what appears to be DU students dressed up in Native American costumes with the hashtag #ThisIsWhatPioneeringLooksLike.

In response to a request for comment from Haefner on DU’s response to RAHR’s demands, a university spokesperson sent a list of actions the university plans to take to improve equity and inclusion, such as providing full scholarships to Native American undergraduate students who qualify based on need, dedicating a memorial space on campus recognizing DU’s links to Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes because of the Sand Creek Massacre and creating a Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies to engage perspectives of Native and Indigenous faculty.

Evans said RAHR doesn’t plan to give up pushing for DU to meet its demands. The group has looked in the university’s archives and found a history of demands similar to theirs by other student groups such as the Black Student Alliance.

“It’s being portrayed as sort of this random movement on campus, when in reality, these demands been circulating … for decades,” he said. “The ‘no more Pios’ movement has been going on for over four years. So this is not new news. The chancellor knows this is not new news.