At the University of Colorado, the message to Black leaders has never changed. If you speak up, you will be punished. If you disrupt the status quo, you will be targeted. If you stand up for your community, they will try to silence you.
As CU’s first Black woman elected to the board in over 43 years and the only current Black regent, I experience that message daily.
Earlier this year, I criticized a University-funded public health campaign called “Tea on THC.” That campaign used harmful, anti-Black imagery. The messaging was offensive, reductive, and rooted in centuries-old racist tropes linking Black Americans to criminality and drug use. It retraumatized students, faculty, alumni, and community members. It violated every value CU claims to uphold.
After public outrage, the images were pulled. University President Todd Saliman, Dean Cathy Bradley of the School of Public Health, and Initium Health (the company that created the imagery) all admitted that the material was racist. They apologized and acknowledged the harm it caused.
While these officials were lauded for pulling the racist imagery, I was condemned for raising concerns about the campaign in the first place. Some even claimed that I violated my fiduciary duties to the University by criticizing the admittedly racist campaign.
Without warning, without a vote from the Board, and in what appears to be a violation of Colorado’s Open Meetings Law, CU Board of Regents Chair Callie Rennison and Vice Chair Ken Montera commissioned an investigation into my advocacy. They claimed that I abused my power as a regent by advocating for the end of a campaign about THC because I own a marijuana dispensary company. Rennison and Montera did not follow the Board of Regents’ policies. They did not consult the full Board. They acted unilaterally and without authority.
The investigation itself was a sham. I was never formally told what I was being accused of. I was denied access to evidence. It was a transparent attempt to railroad me without regard for my due process rights.
The investigation confirmed what was already public knowledge: I criticized the “Tea on THC” campaign for using public funds to promote racist imagery and tropes, which harmed the Black community. And based on that alone, the investigators said that I may have violated my fiduciary duties to the University because, in the mind of my fellow regents, pulling funding for flawed messaging is never in the best interest of the University.
That conclusion is not just wrong. It is gravely dangerous.
Would any elected regent be punished for opposing a campaign that portrayed LGBTQ students as amoral? Would a regent be investigated for speaking out against antisemitic messaging on campus? Would the regents be expected to stay silent if a campaign depicted Muslims as inherently violent or claimed women were intellectually inferior?
We know the answer. If that regent were white, they would be praised for their courage.
But when I, a Black woman, spoke out against racist imagery that harmed Black people, the rules changed. Suddenly, advocacy became misconduct. Truth became a violation. And a regent’s duty to protect the institution conveniently excludes protecting the people who are harmed by it.
Make no mistake. Speaking out against racism is always in the best interest of the University. Racism negatively impacts students’ mental health, academic performance, and career outcomes. It causes decreased student enrollment, donor withdrawal, and loss of critical partnerships for the University. Taking a clear stand against racism protects all members of our community and safeguards CU’s reputation as an elite educational institution.
When this investigation was announced, over 70 Black leaders and prominent Black and alumni organizations submitted letters in my defense. And at a recent Board meeting, over 100 community members spoke for more than three hours, pleading with the regents to consider the message they were sending.
Unfortunately for our Black community, the disparate treatment continues. On Friday, the Board of Regents decided to cherry-pick the investigative facts. The investigation into me found no conflict of interest or self-dealing. But the Board threw out the portion of the investigation that cleared me of any conflict of interest or self-dealing — triggering yet another investigation into those same topics, hoping something might stick if they tried a second time. In that same meeting, Rennison enjoyed a different standard. When an investigation into her found no wrongdoing, the other regents voted unanimously to dismiss the issue outright.
This discrimination won’t stop me. I will not take cues from a Board that violated public trust, suppressed dissent, and punished truth-telling. I will continue to speak out against racism wherever it exists in this institution. That is what real leadership requires. That is what the people of Colorado elected me to do.
If the cost of that work is being censured by a homogenous Board that refuses to confront its own culture of silence and complicity, then so be it.
The Board of Regents’ decision to treat its Black and white regents differently shows that this work is not finished. But neither am I.
Wanda L. James is an elected regent for the University of Colorado. This column reflects her opinion, and not necessarily those of the University of Colorado.
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