Opinion: Kansas State University a hotbed of ‘wokeness’? Horsefeathers!

President Donald Trump attends inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

By H. Edward Flentje

Special to the Kansas Reflector

In June 2024, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump charged on his social media platform that “much of Higher Education has lost its way, and is now corrupting our Youth and Society with, SOCIALIST, and ANTI-AMERICAN Ideology.” He vowed to remove such “wokeness” from U.S. education.

Trump has primarily targeted elite private universities in his attacks on higher education, but Kansas state universities may not escape collateral damage. For example, Kansas State University, not known to be a hotbed of “socialist and anti-American ideology,” has taken on more than its fair share of flak.

A bit of history is in order.

Upon his first day in office this past January, Trump took his first stab at terminating “wokeness” in education. He declared by executive order that the words “diversity, equity, and inclusion” were “illegal and immoral” in their application throughout the federal government, including in grants and contracts with colleges and universities. He ordered the threatening words and related practices to be banned.

A few weeks later, the national office of Young America’s Foundation filed a detailed civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education, asserting: “On behalf of our YAF members at Kansas State University and all truth-seeking students on that campus, YAF requests that you open a formal investigation into Kansas State for its promotion of DEI, racialism, and gender ideology in violation of the First Amendment, civil rights laws, and President Trump’s executive orders.”

YAF, likely an organization most Kansans have never heard of, promotes itself as “the leading organization for young conservatives” and has an active chapter on the K-State campus.

In the meantime, Kansas Republican state lawmakers were considering how Trump’s demands could be applied to higher education in Kansas. They finally settled on attaching a directive to an omnibus appropriation bill with financial penalties for state universities that failed to:

• Eliminate any positions that relate to DEI.

• Eliminate any mandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities relating to DEI.

• Eliminate any training requirements in DEI for any employee.

• Cancel any state grants or contracts relating to DEI.

For good measure, state lawmakers also outlawed gender-identifying pronouns or gender ideology in email signature blocks on state email accounts and any other form of communication.

The Kansas Board of Regents provided guidance to state universities on the matter, and the universities, including K-State, dutifully complied. The forbidden words were scrubbed from their websites, program descriptions, and personnel. In some cases, potentially offending units were eliminated or consolidated, or rebranded to avoid being a target.

For the conservative students at K-State, this cleansing had not gone far enough. The K-State chapter of YAF claimed the university’s actions were a “shell game,” and there was “much work to do.”

Then, in early September, former Gov. Jeff Colyer, now a gubernatorial candidate, saw an opportunity to score political points with Trump’s MAGA base by calling for the firing of a “far-left extremist” on K-State’s staff. Colyer issued a formal campaign statement, asserting: “Kansas State University has made a serious mistake hiring far-left extremist Derron Borders into its Office of Civil Rights.” According to press reports, K-State suspended Borders.

Next, days after the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Colyer found another opportunity to target K-State. He posted on social media a video in which Kirk called out K-State as “the worst” university in the country for infringing his free speech. The video reminded followers of an incident one year earlier in which university officials had cut Kirk’s microphone during his “You’re Being Brainwashed Tour” to the campus. In fact, Kirk had arrived late and spoke for an hour but had exceeded university time limits for blasting loud speakers in the student plaza during class time.

Colyer promised that if he were elected governor, students at state universities would be protected from “woke overlords” that seek to silence them.

Then, a couple weeks ago, state Senate Majority Leader Chase Blasi claimed that state lawmakers were hearing complaints from parents of K-State students. According to Blasi, “some of the universities are rebranding these programs to do the same things that the Legislature has explicitly prohibited.” State lawmakers are now investigating course syllabi in selected academic units at K-State and other universities.

Does the banning of forbidden words mean that our state universities will now be committed to becoming less diverse, less equitable, and less inclusive? I doubt that. I doubt further that most Kansans want state universities characterized by homogeneity, inequity, and exclusiveness. Our state universities have long histories as powerful equalizing forces in American life, and I expect that to continue.

With experience as a student, alum, faculty member, and administrator at three state universities in Kansas over a period of 50 years, I do not believe one would find much “wokeness” in our state universities. Nor are those universities corrupting students with socialism, nor with anti-American ideas, nor with left-wing or right-wing ideologies.

K-State’s experience this past year provides a cautionary tale for all state universities in this Trump era. I forewarn my faculty colleagues that they are ripe targets for agents near and far if they wander outside their respective disciplines into this political quagmire. University officials should remain agile, diffuse incidents that arise, and protect their faculty and staff.

And the Kansas Board of Regents should continue its strong defense of academic freedom.

H. Edward Flentje is a professor emeritus at Wichita State University and formerly was director and professor in the Hugo Wall School of Public Affairs at the university. He has written and edited numerous publications, including most recently co-writing and co-editing “Reform and Reaction: The Arc of Kansas Politics.” Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

This article was republished with permission from the Kansas Reflector. The Kansas Reflector is a non-profit online news organization serving Kansas. For more information on the organization, go to its website at www.kansasreflector.com.