CU President Forced Out For Not Being Woke Enough

(The Federalist) University of Colorado President Mark Kennedy announced earlier this month he would step down after a brief two years on the job culminating in turbulence from student and faculty protest of a president insufficiently leftist for their tastes.

“The Board of Regents and I have entered into discussions about an orderly transition of the presidency and the university in the near future,” Kennedy said in a May 10 statement. “The board has a new makeup this year, which has led to changes in its focus and philosophy.”

The compositional board changes put another target on an already marked man whose conservative credentials made his initial hiring an uphill battle when he narrowly captured the college presidency in 2019. At the time, students and faculty protested Kennedy’s inclusion at the university for his criticism of affirmative action and opposition to gay marriage, according to the Denver Post.

Last fall, Democrats flipped the nine-member board of regents governing the Colorado university system, putting it in their control for the first time in 41 years. That put Kennedy, a Republican whose resume included three terms representing Minnesota in the House of Representatives before three years as president of the University of North Dakota prior to his tenure in Colorado, on the chopping block under the new board.

This spring, leftist students and faculty looking for an opportunity to attach the racist label on their conservative college president found their remark to propel the expulsion. Never mind that Kennedy, according to the school’s Vice President of Communications Ken McConnellogue, hired the university system’s first chief diversity officer and established a $5 million fund for race-conscious initiatives. Among the initiatives were a program to offer in-state tuition for members of indigenous tribes home in Colorado.

This article first appeared at the Federalist. Read the rest here. Title changed by Mile High Evening News.