Republican rebel Cheney to teach at US university

WASHINGTON, DC – MAY 12: Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) talks to reporters after House Republicans voted to remove her as conference chair in the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center on May 12, 2021 in Washington, DC. GOP members removed Cheney from her leadership position after she become a target for former President Donald Trump and his followers in the House as she has continually expressed the need for the Republican Party to separate themselves from Trump over his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP)

Former US Republican lawmaker Liz Cheney has been appointed as a professor at the University of Virginia, the school said Wednesday.

Cheney, who lost her seat in Congress last year to an election conspiracy theorist, will assume the role of professor of practice at the university’s Center for Politics, it said.

The 56-year-old daughter of former vice president Dick Cheney had become a pariah in the party over her membership on the congressional panel investigating the January 6 assault on the US Capitol — and Donald Trump’s role in fanning the flames.

Her defeat in the Wyoming Republican primary marked the end of the family’s four-decade political association with one of America’s most conservative states.

“Preserving our constitutional republic is the most important work of our time, and our nation’s young people will play a crucial role in this effort,” Cheney said in a statement.

“I hope my work with the Center for Politics and the broader community at the University of Virginia will contribute to finding lasting solutions that not only preserve but strengthen our democracy,” she said.