CU’s first Black woman regent in 44 years has a mission to diversify the university’s campuses
DENVER — As the first Black owner of a cannabis dispensary in the United States, Wanda James calls herself a 'drug war warrior'.
“The issue in our community has not been cannabis. The issue in our community has been the drug war and the laws that have been put onto cannabis,” she said.
Now James is also the first Black woman elected to the University of Colorado Board of Regents in 44 years. “I feel unbelievably lifted and amazing and ready to get to work,” she said, adding that this is her life’s dream.
“You can look everywhere in the University of Colorado system and see that there is very little Black leadership and very few Black students. There is not an emphasis on diversity and that’s what I’m going to bring to the table.”
James was sworn into the CU Board of Regents, almost 40 years after graduating from CU Boulder. After a stint in the navy she became active in politics, working with former President Barack Obama and Colorado Governor Jared Polis. Eventually she switched gears to opening the country’s first Black-owned cannabis shop.
The Board of Regents has nine members, one from each of Colorado’s congressional districts and two at-large. They provide overall supervision of the university system, which includes four campuses: CU Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs and the Anschutz medical campus.
“I have built an entire career, legacy, and talking point off of ending the drug war, and off of making sure that people of color have representation, and are not being targeted,” James explained saying those are a few of the main reasons she campaigned to become one of the CU regents.
James is only the third Black person to be a CU Regent in the university’s history. The first was Colorado educator and civil rights activist Rachel B. Noel. Then Joe Neguse was elected Regent in 2008; he now represents Colorado's 2nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
She said her main goal and mission for the University of Colorado system state-wide is to create more equity in order to attract students and faculty from more diverse backgrounds.
“When we talk about DEI; diversity, equity and inclusion — once you open up that door we’re going to do more for, in my case, Black people. But that also means we see more women in leadership; we see more LGBTQ people in leadership; we see people of color we see veterans, etc.”
James said she is also excited about CU Boulder’s new football coach, adding that Deion Sanders has the power to attract more Black and brown students to the CU system.
“If it’s sports that make them want to come here, that’s great! If we can get people talking about sports then we can get people talking about the engineering program. We can get people talking about our phenomenal English program and all the amazing things that we’re doing at CU,” said James as she begins her six-year term as CU Regent.
Dana Knowles is a multimedia journalist at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach her at danaknowles@rmpbs.org.
Lindsey Ford is a multimedia journalist at Rocky Mountain PBS. You can reach her at lindseyford@rmpbs.org.