University of Colorado
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University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309
http://www.colorado.edu

The University of Colorado at Boulder (CU or CU–Boulder) is the flagship university of the University of Colorado system. With its unique Tuscan sandstone architecture and its location nestled under the Flatiron rock formations of Boulder, the campus is considered to be one of the most beautiful in the United States.

CU has produced a number of astronauts, Nobel Prize laureates (three in the last five years), and respected academics. It is renowned for its engineering and business schools and is known as one of the Public Ivies. The January 2004 edition of The Economist ranked CU as the 11th best public university in the world and 31st best university globally for 2003. It is also home to the 2004 U.S. Professor of the Year, Nobel Laureate Carl Wieman. The school is also known for its outdoor activities, left of center politics, and party school reputation.

In football, CU enjoys major rivalries with the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Colorado State Rams. The Buffs begin each football season with the “Rocky Mountain Showdown” against Colorado State. Usually the game has been played at Invesco Field at Mile High, but the game has been moved to Folsom Field the past two seasons due to the high cost of playing in Denver. Since the 1990s, Colorado and Nebraska have finished their respective seasons in a nationally televised confrontation on the Friday following Thanksgiving.

In 2004, the CU football department was accused of facilitating alcohol use and sex to sell its program to recruits. The event soon became a political and media event with sensational headlines. The governor and district attorneys all made public statements about the case.

Several investigations by varying authorities began, but no criminal charges have been filed yet. The civil suit was dismissed in the spring of 2005, but not until the Athletic Director and the President of the University resigned, and former Chancellor Richard Byyny resigned to take a position at the Health Sciences Center in Denver, in part due to the publicity surrounding the recruiting scandal and due to alcohol issues on campus. The federal court judge who dismissed the charges indicated, for example, that the sexual assault of a high school girl by CU football recruits in 1997 did not indicate that college students were at risk. He also indicated that other alleged assaults perpetrated by football players and program employees were irrelevant to the lawsuit and that the university was not “deliberately indifferent” to the victimization of women. Local women’s groups decried the verdict as essentially greenlighting any form of sexual abuse on women. Backers of the football program felt vindicated by the dismissal since they felt the charge were highly dubious.

The allegations which formed the basis of the lawsuits stem from a party where football recruits were invited by one of the roommates of the female students who had spent the evening drinking in their own apartment. Several football players did plead guilty to charges resulting from this party before the lawsuit was filed.

In the spring of 2004, CU fired Professor R. Igor Gamow of the Chemical Engineering Department for moral turpitude. Several women, including students, had come forward over many years with allegations of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and threats of retaliation by Gamow. In 2002, a former assistant of Gamow’s filed a lawsuit against the University alleging sexual harassment and sexual assault. After the lawsuit was filed, CU began to take steps to fire the professor. In 2004 the CU Board of Regents unanimously upheld the recommendation to fire Gamow. The lawsuit by the former assistant is expected to be held in federal court in 2006. Professor Gamow has also filed a lawsuit against CU in an attempt to be reinstated. He has publicly asked, since all the specific allegations against him that comprised CU’s basis to fire him occurred years ago, why Chancellor Byyny et al. didn’t fire him when the allegations were originally made.

In 2005, CU ethnic studies professor Ward Churchill was the center of a controversy involving an essay he penned on September 11, 2001. The essay, “On the Justice of Roosting Chickens,” drew comparisons between some of the workers in the World Trade Center and Adolf Eichmann, the man largely responsible for the logistical operations of German concentration camps. The essay was largely a condemnation of American foreign policy in the decades before September 11th, particularly with regard to Iraq.