Updated at 1:50 p.m. on Friday, June 13, 2025.
University of Colorado Board of Regents voted Friday morning to move forward in the process of censuring Regent Wanda James and to clear Regent Chair Callie Rennison of allegations of fiscal wrongdoing, in a brief special meeting held online.
Regents voted six-to-one in favor of moving forward in the process with James, who is both a regent and a marijuana dispensary owner, for her alleged attempts to influence Gov. Polis to defund a CU Anschutz anti-marijuana campaign that showed Black and dark-skinned people in what she felt was a negative, stereotypical light.
A resolution posted on Friday states: “The Board of Regents is a self-governing body and Regent Policy 2.M describes the authority of the Board of Regents to censure a Regent who has breached a regent duty as defined by ‘a specific statute, Board Law, or Board policy.’”
It continues: “The Board of Regents has received credible information that Regent James may have breached such a duty ... The Board of Regents designates outside independent legal counsel to investigate this matter consistent with the procedures outlined in Regent Policy 2.M, including notice and an opportunity to review the evidence and respond in writing.”
The issue began when James objected to illustrations for the campaign because she said they were exploiting stereotypes. She also talked to the governor about funding for the campaign. The images were quickly pulled from the campaign, and the funding she complained against was not interrupted. Regents were concerned that due to her dispensary business, she had a conflict of interest, meaning she tried to have taxpayer money moved from the campaign to social equity programs because she felt her business might suffer due to the ad campaign, an allegation she’s consistently denied.
After speaking on her own behalf during the online meeting, James did not vote either way; another regent abstained; another was not present to vote, and Regent Nolbert Chavez voted against censuring James, leading to the 6-1 vote. Chavez served four terms in the Colorado House of Representatives and since 2016 has served as an administrator at CU Denver.
According to Rennison, moving forward with the censure process does not mean that James will be censured. When asked about next steps, Rennison said the invocation of a portion of the regents’ policy “asks for the firm to provide evidence of allegations or evidence that the allegations weren't true, and it gives Regent James and her attorney an opportunity to respond in writing, and then at that point, a meeting will be called and there will be presentation of that information, and regents would then vote whether to censure or not.”
She said to her knowledge, this will be the second time a regent faced censure in the school’s history.
Wanda James’ term on the board began in 2023 and will end in 2029. She is the first Black woman elected to the board in more than four decades. A first-generation graduate of CU Boulder, she served four years in the military and has worked at two Fortune 100 companies and now owns Simply Pure dispensary in Denver.
James said in an interview Friday afternoon that she expected the outcome.
“This type of railroading happens all the time, and especially at this university,” she said. “When you see something that is racist and you speak out about it, the message is clear. 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.”
And she said the censure possibility is how she’s being targeted: “CU is embarrassed that I called them out on their anti-Black and their racist tropes that they put out, and this is my punishment for it.”
The illustrations appeared in the Tea on THC campaign ending this month, in which a dark-skinned or black male figure was sketched in cartoon panels alongside words describing the harms caused by marijuana, including poor school performance and laziness. “My only crime is pointing out that the University of Colorado has a racism problem and that they put out these horrible tropes,” she said emphatically.
She is now fighting back, having secured representation by the well-known civil rights law firm, Rathod Mahamedbhai, LLC.
“I'm going to continue to stand up for the faculty and staff at the University of Colorado and the students who have written letters upon letters upon letters to the regents and to the leadership talking about the anti-Black treatment that happens at the University of Colorado,” she said.
The second agenda item wrapped up differently: Rennison, who is chair of the University of Colorado Board of Regents, was found in a unanimous vote to be cleared of charges against her, based on the research done by an independent counsel. A resolution posted on the regents’ website states: “[T]he Board of Regents unequivocally finds that, based on outside counsel’s review, there was no evidence or information to suggest that Regent Rennison violated any state law or Regent policies.”
An outside firm had been hired to look into concerns that she had taken advantage of her role for financial gain. Rennison did not vote either way, and James did not vote either, because she needed to leave the meeting early.
Rennison came under fire earlier this year, after former colleagues expressed concern that she had been paid full-time for part-time work, and that she had used her influence to get people fired. Rennison, who is professor emerita and former associate dean of faculty affairs at University of Colorado Denver School of Public Affairs, said she had welcomed and encouraged the inquiry.
“We hired independent counsel to look into those things. They interviewed several people; they gathered documents. None of those things could be answered by documents, and they concluded that there was nothing there,” Rennison said after the meeting.
The online meeting was held only to address the issues surrounding James and Rennison. It was attended by about three dozen people, and it wrapped up quickly. After an hour-long private session, the public portion of the meeting was finished after thirty minutes of the hour allotted, with minimal discussion.
Rennison said she anticipates that the process leading to a vote on whether to censure James will last about two weeks. “I think one thing that's really important is for nobody to draw conclusions,” she said. “All of us are going into it with an open mind. We're going to wait and see what the facts that are presented are and then make decisions.”
