Congressional candidate Wanda James sued the University of Colorado Board of Regents on Tuesday for censuring her, escalating her fight with fellow university leaders.
James is a member of the elected board that oversees the university system. Last year, she was reprimanded by other regents over her criticism of a public health campaign. She said the university system used anti-Black racial tropes while discussing cannabis.
James is the first Black woman to own a cannabis dispensary in the U.S. She is challenging Rep. Diana DeGette in the Democratic primary election next month to represent the Denver area in Congress.
The candidate objected to illustrations that were a part of the CU Anschutz campaign, titled “The Tea on THC.” The images contained Black or dark-skinned males alongside language describing the effects of marijuana, such as laziness and poor school performance, which she considered derogatory to people of color.
The images were quickly pulled from the campaign. But other regents objected to the way James had criticised the university system and voted 7-1 to censure her, with James abstaining. The censure allows James to attend and vote at all board meetings, according to the Board of Regents, but if James attends internal or external meetings, she cannot say she is attending on behalf of the board.
It also stripped her of “committee assignments and leadership positions through which regents exercise the bulk of their decisional authority,” the lawsuit argued. “The sanctions materially prevent Regent James from performing the duties of her office.”
The law firm Newman McNulty filed the suit Monday against seven regents, alleging a violation of James’ free speech rights under the First Amendment and her right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
“Today is not just about me. It is about whether an elected official can speak honestly about racism inside a public institution without being punished for it,” James said during a press conference Tuesday. “I did what any regent should do. I did what any public servant should do. Instead of addressing those concerns, the Board of Regents chose to silence the only Black regent and the only military veteran on the board.”
Regents allege that James had a conflict of interest and that she violated fiduciary duties
Some regents argued that James had displayed a conflict of interest by trying to defund a campaign that could hurt her business and the cannabis industry. The board retained two law firms to investigate James’ actions, with a focus on a Black History Month speech at CU Boulder where she criticized the public health campaign, the lawsuit stated.
Regents who supported the censure said James had made multiple statements to the press that she was trying to pull funding from the Colorado School of Public Health and shift the funding to grants for marijuana business owners who qualified for social equity licenses.
Michele Ames, vice president for communications for the University of Colorado, said the censure and sanction were due to James violating her fiduciary duties, not for speaking out.
“What's at issue here is her attempts to remove funding from the University of Colorado, specifically for a public health campaign on the Anschutz medical campus. And that's at issue,” Ames said. “She can argue about timing and all of those things, but what the regents voted on in regards to the censure and the sanctions was about her fiduciary responsibility to this university.”
James' lawsuit aims to reverse censure and seeks damages
Investigators interviewed 15 witnesses and collected emails, texts and social media posts, the lawsuit stated.
“You continued to publicly attack the program. In a public statement, you called the program … dishonest. In news articles, you implied the program was based on faulty research,” Regent-at-Large Elliott Hood said at the time.
“Even if you believed the research findings were inaccurate, you cannot put your interests or the interests of your trade above the interests of the university you serve.”
The lawsuit seeks to reverse the censure and the punishments and force policy changes and a public apology. It also seeks economic, compensatory and punitive damages to be established at trial.
“Regent James was censured and sanctioned for speaking truth to power. She spoke out about a clearly racist campaign that was being funded by the University of Colorado and for that she has been silenced,” said Andy McNulty, an attorney representing James. “This is clearly unconstitutional. That's why we're here today. We are here because every day that these sanctions are in place is an ongoing violation of Regent James' rights.”
