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Python's syntax is a breeze to get ahold of without any experience making it ideal for introducing people to CS and algorithmic thinking without overwhelming them with theory or syntax.

Also, a lot of colleges (at least the best ones) offer functional programming in a second semester intro course (Berkeley does Scheme I believe). My own institution uses SML.

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Berkeley's intro class was entirely in Scheme up until a few years back (2011) when they switched to Python. It switched when the course's professor (Brian Harvey) retired, he wrote a great post of his thoughts on Scheme vs Python http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/proglang.html

Berkeley's first intro CS course uses Python for 2/3 of the course, then uses Scheme. The final project is writing a limited Scheme interpreter in Python. To further clarify, Java is used in Berkeley's 2nd CS class (followed by C & MIPS in the 3rd intro class).

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