DENVER — Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is encouraging the University of Colorado’s Board of Regents to reconsider its censure of CU Regent Wanda James.
Denver7 has been following this story after James was initially accused of conflict of interest, following a disagreement over imagery used in an anti-marijuana campaign. She was cleared of the conflict of interest claim.
However, in a bipartisan vote, the board censured James on July 2 for violating the regent policies of "duty of care" and "duty of loyalty."
- Denver7's Micah Smith spoke with James ahead of the vote. What she said, in the video player below:
On Sunday, in a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, Weiser weighed in on the censure and said:
The First Amendment protects the right to free expression. Neither a White House executive order nor a public university policy can override this fundamental right. I am concerned that the CU Board of Regents action sanctioning Regent Wanda James did just that.
To protect the right of free expression and the fair treatment of CU Regent James, the Board of Regents would do well to reconsider its action against her. Leaving this action in place not only raises questions of fairness, it undermines CD1's representation on the Board.
A lesson from this episode is that conflicts should be addressed through a commitment to de-escalating rhetoric, elevating listening, and working to find a mutual understanding.
Callie Rennison, CU Board of Regents Chair, provided the following statement to Denver7, in response to Weiser’s concerns:
The Board has been advised multiple times on the legality of Regent James’ censure. Our independent and internal counsel have been clear: It was her actions, which she outlined to the press multiple times that violated Regent policy. CU works closely with the Attorney General and has briefed his office on the matter. So, we were surprised to learn along with everyone else through a tweet that he had these concerns. We immediately invited him to advise the full board on his legal concerns and so far, he has declined.
Terrance Carroll, attorney and former Speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives, said he agrees with Weiser’s assessment of the censure.
“I think the censure was both wrong, legally, morally and politically. I think that the regents overreacted. It was more of an attempt to tell her to fall completely in line with whatever the board decides and not to exercise her independent judgment as an elected official,” Carroll said.
Carroll added that even though board leadership stated they were advised by legal counsel on the decision, the censure could still face legal challenges.
“I highly doubt that there was some clean, clear-cut green light given from the counsel's office at the university. I watched the meeting where they censured and sanctioned Regent James, and listened to the statements that were given by all the regents that chose to give a statement. And it was really clear that they were trying to find a reason to censure Regent James," Carroll told Denver7. "They couldn't nail her with conflict of interest. There was nothing else to say other than well, she owes a university duty of loyalty and care, and they didn't explain what that duty was, other than you have to other than basically saying you have to speak highly of the university."
Carroll said that in his opinion, regents moved forward with the censure because they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on investigating the conflict-of-interest clam.
“And so they were backed into a corner, and they had to find some reason to justify the amount of money that they spent to come up with nothing, essentially,” Carroll said.
While some community members think race may have also been a factor in the censure — James in the only Black regent on the board — Carroll said he thinks it’s more of an issue of privilege.
“I will say that I don't want to give cast aspersions on the Board of Regents, saying that they proactively acted in a racist way, but what I will say is that they ignored their own privilege. They ignored their own presumptions that are given to them as a predominantly white board and moved forward anyway," Carroll said. "I think one of them said, 'well, Wanda James is always so angry'. And we all know about that old, tired trope when used against Black women that she's so angry. And I think their inability to see their own privilege, to see how the structures and systems of CU allowed for them to not necessarily deliberately act in a racist way, but led to an outcome and intent that was prejudicial."
Carroll said the CU Board of Regents should rescind the censure and apologize to James.
