My school starts the computer science curriculum with C++ programming courses, meaning this is the first language that many of the students learn.

I've seen that many people dislike C++, and I've read a variety of reasons why. It almost seems to be popular opinion that C++ isn't a very good language. I get the impression it's not very liked based on some questions on StackExchange as well as posts such as:
http://damienkatz.net/2004/08/why-c-sucks.html
http://blogs.kde.org/node/2298
http://blogs.cio.com/esther_schindler/linus_torvalds_why_c_sucks
http://www.dacris.com/blog/2010/02/16/why-c-sucks-part-2/
etc.

(Note: It is not my opinion that C++ is a bad language. In fact, it's the main language I use. However, the internet as well as some professors have given me the impression that it's not a very widely liked language. In fact, one of my professor constantly rags on C++, yet it's still the starting language at my college!)

With that in mind, why is this the first language taught at many schools? What are the reasons for starting a programming curriculum with C++?

Note: This question is similar to "Is C++ suitable as a first language", but is a little different since I'm not interested in whether it's suitable, but why it's been chosen.