{"id":144,"date":"2025-06-25T17:30:52","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/?p=144"},"modified":"2025-07-03T10:13:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T10:13:14","slug":"wanda-james-left-us-no-choice-but-to-investigate-her-actions-opinion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/25\/wanda-james-left-us-no-choice-but-to-investigate-her-actions-opinion\/","title":{"rendered":"Wanda James left us no choice but to investigate her actions (Opinion)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We\u2019re writing in response to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/06\/24\/wanda-james-cu-cannabis-tea-thc-investigation\/\">the recent opinion piece published<\/a> by a member of our board, Regent Wanda James. While we would prefer not to debate this issue on the pages of The Denver Post, her accusations compel us to respond publicly.<\/p>\n<p>Before we get into the specifics, we want to state clearly and unequivocally that actions already taken and being contemplated by the University of Colorado Board of Regents are not efforts to silence Regent James.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, our actions\u00a0stem from her own words publicly touting\u00a0her efforts to pull funding from the University, which may violate a Regent\u2019s legal and ethical obligations to act in the University\u2019s best interest.<\/p>\n<p>Our board is a self-governing body, which means it is our obligation to review any concerns that a Regent may have violated the policies and rules that govern our conduct. No one else is in a position to do this for us. As a body, we draft and pass laws and policies that set expectations for our entire CU Community, up to and\u00a0including the Regents.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why, when we receive credible information that one of us has violated a Regent law or policy, it\u2019s critical<a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/03\/20\/wanda-james-cu-regent-investigation-conflict-of-interest\/\"> that we act on that information<\/a>. In this case, we are reviewing actions Regent James may have taken following the resolution of her criticisms of a public health campaign being carried out by the Colorado School of Public Health.<\/p>\n<p>At the time of the campaign\u2019s launch, Regent James raised concerns that some of the images used by the campaign were racially insensitive and furthered misperceptions about the impact on the Black community. Her assessment was met with support, swift action was taken, apologies were made and the images were removed.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related right\">\n<h2 class=\"widget-title\" data-curated-ids=\"\" data-relation-type=\"automatic-primary-tag\">Related Articles<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a class=\"article-title\" href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2025\/06\/24\/wanda-james-cu-cannabis-tea-thc-investigation\/\" title=\"Wanda James: CU is trying to silence me after I raised concerns about a racist marketing campaign\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<span class=\"dfm-title metered\"><br \/>\n\t\t\tWanda James: CU is trying to silence me after I raised concerns about a racist marketing campaign\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/aside>\n<p>As she is aware, it is her subsequent actions and her own public statements in multiple interviews to several news outlets advocating the removal of funding from the University that is the subject of the review.<\/p>\n<p>Her attempts to redirect the conversation are called into question by her own public comments on the topic. It is these statements that led some on the board to question whether she had violated Regent laws and policies. No one is questioning her right to voice concerns about the public health campaign or advocate for changes. In fact, her issues regarding the campaign materials were resolved months ago. It&#8217;s what she said she did afterwards to reduce funding to the Colorado School of Public Health that gives rise to this review.<\/p>\n<p>We are sorry to have to address this issue in this way, but to allow her public accusations and misstatements to go unanswered was something we could not do. There are much better ways for CU leadership to use its time and financial resources.<\/p>\n<p>But our status\u00a0as a self-governing board requires this action and financial expense to ensure\u00a0we are following our own rules and policies in a transparent way. The Board is committed to providing members of the public access to the report from this review at the conclusion of the process which we expect to be within the next several\u00a0weeks.<\/p>\n<p><em>Callie Rennison is the chairwoman of the University of Colorado Board of Regents. Ken Montera is the vice chairman of the University of Colorado Board of Regents.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/myaccount.denverpost.com\/dp\/preference\">Sign up for Sound Off to get a weekly roundup of our columns, editorials and more. <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>To send a letter to the editor about this article, submit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/submit-letter\/\">online<\/a> or check out our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2013\/07\/09\/submission-guidelines-and-contact-information\/\">guidelines<\/a> for how to submit by email or mail.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text-justify mb-2\" >We\u2019re writing in response to the recent opinion piece published by a member of our board, Regent Wanda James. While we would prefer not to debate this issue on the pages of The Denver Post, her accusations compel us to respond publicly. Before we get [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columnists"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144\/revisions\/145"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sleepystork.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}