The University of Colorado Board of Regents are holding one of five annual regular meetings this week. What’s likely to make this one not quite regular: two of the regents who will be there are under independent reviews.
First, there’s Wanda James. James is serving her first term as a regent. She’s also a marijuana dispensary owner, long-time Denverite and self-described activist who just started a political action committee to support lesser-known, progressive potential candidates for office.
Earlier this year, she took offense to images of a dark-skinned male used in an anti-marijuana campaign. She thought it was inappropriate, and she suggested that the millions of dollars in tax-payer funding for the program be diverted away from the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, who did the campaign and instead be given to social equity programs. Although that didn’t end up happening, when James’ fellow regents found out, they mobilized into action.
Some Regents felt James’ actions — because she runs a marijuana dispensary — represented a conflict of interest, so first they wrote a letter to the legal department that put James in a position to be censured at the meeting. Then, they called for an independent review. Although results of the review won’t be ready in time for the April meeting, James said in an interview that she is ready for whatever comes:
“I'm feeling saddened that we're going through this, but … I am feeling uplifted. I am feeling surrounded. I am feeling loved. I am feeling appreciated. The amount of support that has come from … our alumni, from professors, from students, from so many people associated with the university, I feel fantastic,” James said. “Well, I don't feel fantastic in terms of what's happening because what's happening is a complete failure of leadership. I am distraught about that, but as far as the support that I'm receiving, it has been wonderful.”
She also said the regents meeting will not reveal anything about the investigation. “So the investigation is not complete,” James said. “I have yet to speak to anybody since this whole thing started. I have spoken to none of the board members, not to Callie (Rennison), not to Ken (Montera), and I've had no conversations with the lawyer that they have hired to investigate all of us. So tomorrow there won't be any votes or anything like that.”
The second person under review is Rennison herself, who chairs the board of regents. Her bio describes her as a professor emerita and former associate dean of faculty affairs at the University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs who “served as the Director of the Office of Equity and Title IX Coordinator for the CU Denver and Anschutz Medical campuses.”
Once news got out that Rennison had put James in the hot seat, some former CU faculty reached out to the board with some complaints of their own about Rennison.
They run the gamut from alleging Rennison gave higher-paying jobs to people she liked and humiliated people in meetings, to getting paid full-time when she was teaching just part-time.
Rennison declined to comment for this story, citing advice from her lawyer.
In an online interview with former CU professor Melissa Gibson, who reported to Rennison when she was a faculty member in the Department of Criminal Justice and says she was later fired by her, Rennison’s efforts against James are part of “a pattern of behavior that retaliates against outspoken women.”
Once concerns about her were brought to the board, Rennison got added in with James to the independent review, which will not be complete in time for the regents’ meeting, to be held at CU Denver.
Public comment during the meeting is expected to be robust on behalf of James, who has support from Black legislators and academics statewide.
According to Reiland Rabaka, a faculty member in African and African American studies at CU Boulder, “Wanda is the third Black regent in the history of the University of Colorado Boulder. And I can tell you that Black faculty, staff and students, and the alumni, see Regent James as our champion, as somebody that is really fighting for us in a space.”
The meeting is expected to conclude Friday.
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