Kansas State Leaders Promote Open Dialogue While Navigating Racial and Political Controversy

The Wildcats ranked the highest out of any public university on the newly released 2020 College Free Speech Rankings. K-State ranked number two overall, second only to the University of Chicago out of 55 colleges and universities ranked.

The College Free Speech Rankings, conducted by RealClearEducation, College Pulse, and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), offer a comprehensive comparison of the student experience of free speech on campuses. The findings are based on a survey of approximately 20,000 currently enrolled students and are designed “to help parents and prospective students choose the right college.”

The rankings encompass 38 public universities and 17 private universities. They are predicated on each school’s written policies on free speech as well as a 26-question student survey about free expression on campus.

According to the report, K-State is only one of six colleges in the rankings where “conservatism is the plurality viewpoint among students on campus.” Roughly 43% of the 18,171 undergraduate students self-identify as conservative, whereas only 32% self-identify as liberal.

The taxpayer-funded university received an overall score of 57.3 out of 100 in the College Free Speech Rankings. According to the methodology of the survey, student responses on “tolerance” and “openness” each count for 40% of the score. “Self-expression” counts toward 12%, while “administrative support” and FIRE’s “Speech Code” rating each count for 4%.

While K-State is the top-ranked public university, there is still plenty of room for improvement, since it only scored about 10 points higher than the second worst ranking public university, Louisiana State University.

Most students at K-State (51%) believe that it is “never acceptable to shout down” a speaker on campus. In contrast, only about a third (35%) of LSU students oppose shouting down a speaker with unfavorable views.

Gregory Eiselein, a professor of English, he is proud of the university’s ranking in the survey.  

“I think K-State does a very good job of promoting and protecting free speech and academic freedom, with events like Wildcat Dialogues, for example,” he said. The event series is billed as an “intercultural leadership experience” for “all new and first-year K-State students.”

The program purports to help students build a “skillset to understand cultural differences and similarities,” to recognize how their “cultural and social identities make an impact” on how they perceive the world around them, and to demonstrate “authentic curiosity and empathy when engaging in meaningful dialogues across difference.”

“The challenge is to make sure that we create an environment that feels safe for all of our students to think freely and express ideas,” Eiselein said. “I think efforts like Wildcat Dialogues rises to that challenge and does just that.”

The Kansas Conference of the American Association of University Professors begs to differ. It claims to have witnessed some “extremely troubling violations of academic freedom, inappropriate dismissal of tenured faculty and gross compromises in due process on the KSU campus.”

RealClearEducation reached out to conference president, Doris Chang, but did not receive a reply prior to publishing. (K-State does not have its own AAUP chapter.)

FIRE gives the university its highest rating in its speech code database, a “green light,” meaning its policies “do not seriously imperil speech.”

“Kansas State is one of just 54 institutions nationwide to earn FIRE’s highest” rating, Daniel Burnett, director of communications for FIRE, told RealClearEducation. “In 2017, it adopted the ‘Chicago Statement’—the gold standard for campus free speech policy statements,” he said. “These are good signs that the university knows its legal limitations and the principles at stake.”

Offering a specific example, Burnett applauded the university’s response to a controversial tweet from one of its students regarding George Floyd, who died while being restrained by Minneapolis police. 

On June 26, one month after Floyd’s death, Kansas State student Jaden McNeil tweeted, “Congratulations to George Floyd on being drug free for an entire month!” (The medical examiner’s autopsy showed three different drugs in Floyd’s system at the time of his death - fentanyl, methamphetamine and cannabinoids.)

The tweet created an uproar in the K-State community, with students demanding McNeil’s expulsion for what President Richard Myers called his “insensitive” tweet.

Speaking in the name of “Black student athletes” at the university, women’s basketball team member Christianna Carr tweeted that the team would no longer “play or participate in any donor or recruiting events.” The university must deliver “strong consequences” against McNeil and adopt a policy “that will expel any student that openly displays racism” in any manner, the statement said.

The university did not yield to the athletes’ demands. In his June 29 message to the K-State community, President Myers alluded to the oath he had taken when joining the United States Air Force to “support and defend our Constitution, including the freedom of expression.”

“Democracy is a messy system devised by humans who all have imperfections. Many times, the answers or decisions we have to live with are also imperfect,” Myers wrote. 

In a statement two days later, he said: “There have been many calls for us to expel a student who posted racist messages on social media, and while these messages are disrespectful and abhorrent, we cannot violate the law.”

The university “has a long and proud history of commitment to free and open inquiry, deliberation and debate in all matters, and the untrammeled verbal and nonverbal expression of ideas,” according to its Statement on Free Speech and Expression.

The statement asserts that “it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive.”

The K-State chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America has mixed feelings on this promise.

“Kansas State University allows a literal white supremacists [sic] student group called America First Students to operate on campus,” the organization wrote in an unsigned email to RealClearEducation.

“That group is allowed to use university resources including money for events or travel. We’d say [the university] will allow space for anyone to speak their views and to promote their ideology,” wrote Noah Rude, an architectural engineering student and YDSA member speaking on behalf of the organization in a separate email.

“The America First Students group does not explicitly indicate that they are a white supremacist group; however, there are som [sic] indications that the organization values certain groups of people over others,” Rude added.

In the email, Rude states that America First Students is required to include K-State’s anti-discrimination policy in its constitution which “basically states that the group cannot discriminate against race, religion, age, or sexual orientation.”

“On top of all this,” Rude concludes, “their leader is Jaden McNeil. He’s notorious for posting awful stuff on Twitter and sending his goons to disrupt and troll K-State events that promote diversity and inclusion.”

America First Students was founded by McNeil. According to its Twitter account, it seeks to “put the American people first” and emphasize “the importance of God and family.”

RealClearEducation reached out to McNeil for his thoughts on how K-State views the First Amendment rights of its students and for a response to YDSA’s description of his group, but did not receive a reply prior to publishing this story.

Although the university ranks highly, student Claire Winter wants K-State to go further.

“I think K-State does a great job of supporting free speech,” the second-year environmental engineering major said in an Instagram message Oct. 14, “but [the university] could do a better job of implementing change for what us students speak out about.”

When asked to give a specific example, Winter did not respond to RealClearEducation’s inquiry.

As a public university, one of K-State’s fundamental roles is protecting students’ right to free speech and faculty members’ right to teach a wide variety of subjects—even controversial topics, according to Communications and Marketing Vice President Jeffery Morris. 

“Kansas State University is committed to free and open inquiry and was pleased to be recognized for our efforts to promote free speech,” Morris said.

Yet he added that free speech “must be considered within the framework of existing laws concerning harassment and discrimination.” The university will scrutinize speech “that violates the law, falsely defames an individual, or constitutes a threat or discrimination.”

When asked how KSU could improve, if at all, Morris responded by warning against complacency. “We must continually educate our campus communities about the roles and responsibilities of citizens. Every year we have new cohorts of students, faculty, and staff members who join our communities.”