Associated Press

Now 19 years old, Bayley is one of hundreds of metro Denver teenagers who benefit every year from Denver Health’s Substance Abuse Treatment, Education and Prevention program, known as STEP.

STEP therapists and psychiatrists work with young people at the uniquely challenging intersection of mental health and substance use struggles, medical director Mario Lintz said.

Teens often come to STEP through school referrals or their parents seeking help, or because they were seen in the emergency room or referred through a diversion program for juveniles in the court system.

Like many program graduates, Bayley found it during one of the lowest points of his life. He attempted suicide by overdose when he was a sophomore in high school and was treated at Denver Health, where he connected with a doctor who told him about STEP.

The swirl of developmental changes that happen in adolescence already makes it a prime time for teens to develop anxiety and negative thinking, Lintz said. Those changes, added to teens’ inclination to take risks while they’re trying to figure out who they are, can be a volatile combination.

“With kids who have a traumatic past, substance use becomes something they use regularly to deal with those things,” Lintz said.

And it might make them feel better at first, until they start experiencing withdrawal symptoms and worsening side effects, and are now struggling with a substance use disorder along with an untreated mental health disorder.

To make it even more challenging, it’s hard to find a provider who will treat both, whether in Colorado or across the country, Lintz added.

“As much overlap as there is between substance use and mental health disorders, they’re often viewed separately, and there’s not a lot of providers who feel comfortable treating both. It can make the picture unclear, from a mental health standpoint, of what’s going on,” he said.

STEP fills that need with ongoing therapy, medication management and an intensive, eight-week outpatient program for teens and their families.

The program also goes the extra mile to remove barriers that often prevent people from accessing care.

STEP isn’t just in one location — providers meet with their patients at the Bannock Street offices as well as at 11 Denver-area high schools. The program pays for transportation for about 40 young people to get to appointments every week. And there are always plenty of snacks and beverages on hand for those who need them.

Five years after he first started STEP, Bayley is now working toward an associate’s degree in business with the goal of completing a bachelor’s in marketing and becoming a marketing or brand director. He plans to move to New York City this summer to further his career goals.

It’s a dramatic difference from where he was, Bayley said — from wanting to give up to loving himself and feeling comfortable in his skin.

“I was a 13-year-old who smoked weed all day and thought college was stupid,” Bayley said. “Now I’m going to college. I care more about my life. Before I was fine dying before 18, and now I’m 19 and I want to live.”

Denver Health STEP program

Address: 660 Bannock St., Denver, CO 80204

In operation since: 2003

Number of employees: 10

Number of volunteers: 0

Annual budget: $1,178,147

Number of clients served: 5,310 total visits in 2024

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The Pride Lounge at the University of Denver was a colorful conference room adorned with rainbows, LGBTQ-affirming posters and bookshelves crammed with queer literature.

Students of all backgrounds and beliefs could gather there to chat, study and build community, but the space was particularly affirming and welcoming for the campus’s LGBTQ students — a place they could be their authentic selves.

Eric Duran, former director of the Gender and Sexuality Student Success wing of the private university’s Cultural Center, said he broke down when DU leadership issued a directive last month to scrub the university of resources for LGBTQ people.

Duran and his co-director at the since-renamed Cultural Center resigned this month. Duran said he couldn’t bring himself to dismantle the Pride Lounge, so a colleague removed all LGBTQ-related items from the room — one of the most plainly visible examples of DU’s move this fall to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on campus, drawing anger from some faculty, employees and students.

“It felt like I was being told to put students back in the closet or to not be visible at the university anymore,” Duran said. “I really did break down. It was a very hard day.”

The resignations occurred weeks after Chancellor Jeremy Haefner announced DU was doing away with many of the services and programs that support students of color and other marginalized scholars out of fear the school would lose federal funding from the Trump administration, which has labeled diversity initiatives as unlawfully discriminatory.

Since returning to office in January, President Donald Trump and his administration have railed against DEI efforts and pulled federal funding from institutions with programs supporting people of color, LGBTQ students and low-income residents who often face extra barriers to college.

Haefner declined an interview for this story, but provided an emailed statement saying DU remained “steadfastly committed” to inclusiveness. He noted that this year’s class of first-year students had the highest percentage of students of color in DU history at 34%.

“I understand change can be hard, especially when individuals feel as though the representation of particular identities may be at stake, and even more so when someone does not agree with why the change is occurring and has invested so much time in advocating for something so critical,” Haefner wrote. “But I continue to be inspired by our staff and faculty who lean into this effort and are focused on making sure that we continue to provide support and resources for all faculty, staff, and students at DU.”

People who work and learn at the Denver liberal arts college describe “a culture of fear” created by a “university bending to an authoritarian government,” Duran wrote in an email to colleagues upon his resignation.

Haefner told The Denver Post last month that DU was not “kowtowing” to the federal administration and that inclusivity would remain an institutional core value. But as programs and spaces benefitting the university’s most vulnerable students are moved, renamed or dissolved, DU’s marginalized community members say they wonder whether their diversity — once touted by the university as a positive — will be drowned out entirely.

Anxious students

Dheepa Sundaram, DU associate professor of Hindu studies and digital culture, called the current higher education landscape a “crisis situation.” She said she understands there is no easy solution and that the risk of seeing funding cut off is real.

Academic institutions across the country have lost hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds this year as the Trump administration pulls grants deemed DEI-related.

“But I also think we should fight,” Sundaram said. “We have a risk-averse administration that is also not great at communicating, and that’s made this situation difficult. There’s a lot of confusion around why we won’t fight back. The administration is telling us, ‘Don’t worry. We’re erasing you, but we’re still here.’ That feels really tone deaf.”

Haefner noted in his statement that since 2023, all universities have been impacted by the Supreme Court ruling on the consideration of race in admissions, including through the “changes in interpretation of the law” that Trump’s Justice Department issued equating DEI with discrimination.

“We remain steadfastly committed to our values, including our commitment to inclusiveness and our collective work to make sure all students can feel welcomed and supported,” Haefner wrote. “We also are committed to comply with the law, and we are confident that we can achieve both goals.”

Sundaram recently met with her students of color to hear their thoughts on the changes at their school this year.

Not only was the Pride Lounge dismantled, but a lounge for students of color was dissolved, too, Sundaram said. The Cultural Center — formerly a space inside the Community Commons building — was relocated to a smaller space on a different floor and renamed Community Connections.

DEI training for faculty and staff was also eliminated.

Students who give campus tours to incoming freshmen told Sundaram they’ve been instructed to remove references to resources for students of color and LGBTQ students, she said. Her students told her they feel like they have to censor themselves on campus. On a positive note for Sundaram, the professor said the curriculum appears to be untouched.

“I don’t think students know where to go for support,” Sundaram said. “Students feel like they have lost all the different things that made the campus feel special and connected. I don’t think the administration recognizes they are destroying that community aspect they keep emphasizing because students just don’t feel like they have their back. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the students so anxious.”

Haefner said the university created a new Division of Community Support and Engagement in the wake of the DEI rollbacks to further “new means of engagement to lead in building connections for an inclusive environment for the entirety of the DU community.”

Ember Zabe, a 33-year-old student working on a master’s of social work degree, was a queer mentor in a program through the Cultural Center in which they supported undergraduate LGBTQ students. The program was disbanded this fall.

DU also eliminated scholarships, internships, mentorships or leadership programs for specific racial groups or that target underserved geographic areas.

“My heart is very heavy knowing there are young people entering DU in search of connection and opportunity that no longer exists for them,” Zabe said. “It’s not acceptable that the university boasts about their diverse student body, tokenizing students who have marginalized identities while simultaneously stripping the student body of nearly all supports and resources that support LGBTQ, first-generation and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) students.”

Evelyn Stovin, 23, used to be a student employee at the Cultural Center and served as the former president of DU’s Queer Student Alliance.

The Cultural Center once housed the Pride Closet, which offered free, gender-affirming products like chest binders or clothing that students experimenting with their gender identity could wear. The Pride Closet was moved and renamed the Care Closet. Its purpose will be broadened, Stovin said.

“I’m frustrated that we are supposed to be a liberal university in Colorado of all places and we are run by the most despicable people imaginable who don’t have the balls to try and stand up for their students,” Stovin said.

‘DEI is not dead’

The final straw for Duran came when senior administrators said his job title and job description must change to remove any association with diverse groups, he said.

“That was really when I was like, ‘This isn’t my job anymore to serve LGBTQ students the way I did,’” Duran said.

When Duran resigned Oct. 9, he sent a long email to his colleagues, which has since been widely distributed and referenced in public faculty meetings, Sundaram said. The email, Duran said, was a reflection of what it felt like to be marginalized by the institution.