It's important to note that JS has an unfair advantage in that if you want to write code that runs on the universal platform, you're forced to use either it or something that transpiles to it. Python reached where it was on merits alone.
(That said, JS is actually a very versatile and almost-great language, getting better all the time)
Most universities I knew were still teaching Java well into python's rise to popularity a decade ago. Python got where it is by focusing on being simple, easy, and nice to use. Seriously take a look at PEP-20 sometime:
There's a lesson in there to learn. Its unfortunate that the people who need to learn it most likely won't.