Bruce Benson Elected CU President On Party Line Vote

For the first time since the early 1970s, a CU president is elected without a unanimous vote:

Bruce Benson was named the 22nd president of the University of Colorado tonight, despite criticism from some faculty, students and staff that the millionaire oilman doesn't have the academic credentials and is too tied to Republican politics.

The CU Board of Regents voted 6 to 3, on a party-line vote, to hire Benson to replace Hank Brown.

It marks the first time since 1974 that a CU president has been hired without a unanimous vote.

Regents Tillie Bishop, Steve Bosley, Pat Hayes, Kyle Hybl, Tom Lucero and Paul Schauer — all Republicans — voted yes, saying Benson's qualifications are unmatched.

"No one in Colorado today has a higher understanding of higher education in Colorado as Mr. Benson," Bosley said.

And the sticks in the mud:

The three no votes came from the board's three Democrats — Cindy Carlisle, Michael Carrigan and Steve Ludwig.

Ludwig insisted the vote was not a true party-line vote, saying politics had nothing to do with his decision.

"We need great relations with Colorado state lawmakers," he said. "Another controversy or controversial figure sucks all the oxygen out of the room."

Carrigan said Benson had been too polarizing a choice, while Carlisle took exception with the board bringing forward only one finalist.

The Drunkablog was following earlier faculty and student reactions to Benson's nomination.

Bruce Benson's election as CU president illustrates the immense importance of down ticket elections; in this case, the 6-3 GOP advantage in CU Regents. Benson's party line election, following a nomination process full of partisan rancor couched in questions over his qualifications, demonstrated the seething intolerance emitted by the moonbats in the faculty and the students themselves throughout the CU system. Democrats Sen. Ken Salazar and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper were among a handful of Dems who saw through the partisanship and believed that Benson was eminently qualified to lead CU as an institution, and not some GOP hack.

Cindy Carlisle Explains Dissenting Churchill Vote

CU Regent and Democrat Cindy Carlisle explains her lone dissenting vote as "deference" to the Privilege and Tenure Committee:

The sole University of Colorado Board of Regents member to vote against firing a professor who compared some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi said she followed the recommendation of a faculty committee, which suggested suspension.

Regent Cindy Carlisle told the Summit Daily News for its Friday edition that the Privilege and Tenure Committee had voted 3-2 to suspend former ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill for one year and demote him. CU President Hank Brown recommended Churchill be fired.

"I thought that they were the reviewing body who had the most at stake in terms of reviewing this," Carlisle said when contacted while on vacation in Hawaii. "They're active faculty. They're upholding the reputation of everything. They do the research, the teaching, the everything. I thought they would be in the best position to judge what the outcome should be."

Summit County Republicans criticized Carlisle for being the only regent to vote no in an 8-1 decision July 24 to fire Churchill for research misconduct, that included allegations of fabrication, falsification and plagiarism

Carlisle is a Democrat who represents Summit, Eagle, Grand, Clear Creek, Gilpin and Boulder counties.

In a follow-up letter on the issue, Carlisle said the reasons for her vote were "institutional." "As the case presented purely academic issues, I believed respect for faculty governance was of overriding importance. Plus, the work of the Privilege and Tenure Committee was extremely impressive both hard-hitting and fair and entitled to deference," she wrote.

Whether out of respect for the academics' recommendations or an attempt to shift responsibility away from herself, we can't help but feel that Carlisle's vote was calculated to bring her sympathy as a lone voice for free speech, and provide token "credibility" to the Regents' vote--for the Churchill-types, that is.