Sac State Diversity Chief's Lawsuit Claims Discrimination and Retaliation Under President Wood

What was supposed to be a career capstone has become a legal battle. Dr. Mia Settles-Tidwell, who served as Sacramento State’s vice president for Inclusive Excellence and diversity officer, filed a civil lawsuit in May 2025 against University President Luke Wood and the California State University Board of Trustees, alleging discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wrongful termination based on age, gender, and race.

Settles-Tidwell’s story at Sac State started on a high note. Hired in November 2021 under then-President Robert Nelsen, she brought a deep resume: nearly three decades in the Oakland Unified School District, where she served as its first Black female chief operating officer, plus roles in equity and inclusion at UC Berkeley. Her mandate was ambitious—implement Sac State’s Antiracism and Inclusive Campus Plan while overseeing staffing, budgets, and policy. For her first two years, she received performance evaluations that rated her as“Meets Expectations.”

Then Wood arrived in July 2023, and the lawsuit alleges things shifted. Initially collegial—Wood even wrote an unsolicited endorsement of Settles-Tidwell to the Millennium Leadership Institute—the relationship soured between late 2023 and early 2024. According to the complaint, Settles-Tidwell’s portfolio was reduced, her hiring authority was restricted, and she was excluded from the 2024-25 budgeting process. Emails she sent to Wood and other officials went unresponded to. She was also left off the leadership team of the Black Honors College, despite having authored the original proposal for Sac State.

The lawsuit details a particularly stinging moment in March 2024: Wood sent her an email, copied to other cabinet-level administrators, criticizing her leadership as“not effective”in language the complaint characterizes as public harassment and humiliation. When Settles-Tidwell requested a meeting to discuss the email, she received no response. She also points to a disparity in merit increases—she received 1.5% while peers at her level got 2.5% or more, with no explanation offered.

By April 2024, Settles-Tidwell had reached her breaking point. In her resignation letter, she cited continuous, disparate, and adverse conditions that created a hostile work environment. Wood made no effort to retain her, but days after her departure, he allegedly sent her a reprimand text based on hearsay and expressed disappointment couched in language she found rooted in her protected status as a Black woman. He also reportedly texted other colleagues to exclude her from cabinet meetings before her final day.

In her farewell letter to The State Hornet, Settles-Tidwell wrote with a clarity born of hard-won experience:“At this stage in my career, and as a seasoned Black woman in leadership, modeling self-respect, integrity, self-preservation, and ethics are acts of the greatest activism.”The case is heading to trial, with the defense seeking to move it from Los Angeles Superior Court to Sacramento County. A venue hearing is scheduled for September 8. For a university that tapped Settles-Tidwell to lead its antiracism efforts, the irony is unmistakable—and now the institution will have to answer for it in court.