Straws in the Wind - Part 436

From the Kansas Reflector: An anonymous tip accusing a Chinese-American chemist and researcher of espionage spurred the University of Kansas into action, notifying the U.S. Department of Justice and building a case against its own employee, Feng “Franklin” Tao said in a lawsuit. Tao was a tenured chemical engineering professor at KU in 2019 when he became one of the first professors arrested under the first Trump administration’s “China Initiative,” a DOJ campaign purportedly created to thwart economic espionage and intellectual property theft.

After a federal indictment, a criminal conviction and an acquittal by an appeals court, Tao said in a lawsuit filed July 21 in federal court that the university violated state and federal workplace discrimination protections and caused harm to his reputation and career prospects. The lawsuit is Tao’s second against KU. He sued in 2025 in an attempt to regain his job and claimed the university discriminated against him. The July lawsuit accused KU of retaliating because of the 2025 discrimination complaints...

Full story at https://kansasreflector.com/briefs/kansas-professor-falsely-accused-of-espionage-wants-university-to-pay-for-firing-harm-to-reputation/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 432

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: The Department of Education’s... letter outlining principles for “every postsecondary institution” in the country was a bombshell for two reasons. One: The Trump administration was asking college presidents to sign onto its overarching vision for the sector. Two: Several prominent higher-ed leaders were reported to have helped draft it. The Association of American Universities was reportedly the primary partner... Douglas A. Girod, chancellor of the University of Kansas, was supposed to have been another major player. The very idea caused “great consternation to the KU faculty,” said Ronald M. Barrett-Gonzalez, a professor of aerospace engineering there.

...Andrew D. Martin, chancellor of Washington University in St. Louis, issued a statement saying: “For several months, I have participated in broader discussions with the White House and other higher-education leaders about issues affecting the sector. I expect those conversations helped inform the administration’s thinking around their Monday letter. I was not involved, however, in the drafting of the letter.” ...In an interview with The Chronicle, Barbara R. Snyder, president of the AAU, described a complicated feedback process with the Trump administration in which AAU representatives had little control over drafts. She, Girod, and Ronald J. Daniels, president of the Johns Hopkins University, met with officials from the Education Department and the White House two or three times in person and a couple of times over the phone, she said. Girod and Daniels were acting in their capacity as chair and vice chair of AAU’s board. They always met with Trump officials as a group of three, Snyder said.

They provided feedback on drafts, which they did not receive copies of. They were allowed to see them only during the meetings. Without access to past drafts, Snyder said she couldn’t exactly recall what changed over the course of their meetings, but she said: “The first draft we saw was already quite different from the compact, and the final draft is quite different from the first draft. Did they listen to some of our suggestions? Yes. Did they take all of our suggestions? No.” Asked if Snyder’s description of the meetings was accurate, a spokesperson for the Education Department answered with a short statement: “We appreciate the candid dialogue with bold university leaders who are helping refocus higher education on its foundational commitment to academic excellence.” ...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/college-leaders-play-down-their-involvement-in-compact-2-0.

Straws in the Wind - Part 392

From Inside Higher Ed: The Kansas Board of Regents... formally defined the terms “DEI” and “CRT,” paving the way for state-mandated curriculum changes that will eliminate gender-, race- and ethnicity-focused courses from general education requirements at public universities. Free speech advocates called the definitions “vague and confusing” and say they leave faculty and students “on shaky ground.” Public university faculty have mixed feelings on the definitions. Some said they could have been worse, and others said they pave the way for serious infringements on academic freedom.

In compliance with House Bill 2513—which passed the Legislature in March and which Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly grudgingly signed—the board of regents defined “DEI-CRT” as “diversity, equity, inclusion and critical race theory” and stated that a DEI-CRT course is one whose “title, course description or learning outcomes include DEI-CRT-related content.” That content is defined as anything which “intentionally establishes and promotes the preferential treatment of groups based on race, color, gender, ethnicity or national origin,” according to board documents. CRT content also includes anything that “presents racism as systemic within laws, policies, or institutions and promotes acceptance of that viewpoint rather than presenting it as a subject of scholarly, historical, or legal study.” Discussion of race, racism or the history of the civil rights movement is not considered DEI-CRT–related content under the policy...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty/academic-freedom/2026/06/24/some-kansas-faculty-uneasy-over-vague-dei-definitions.

Straws in the Wind - Part 385

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: In what’s becoming a familiar exercise, the Kansas Board of Regents just spent weeks wrestling over how to define “diversity, equity, and inclusion/critical race theory” content that cannot be part of required courses under a new state law. The final definition... leaves substantial room for discussions about race in public university classrooms, while still raising prickly questions about what faculty can and can’t teach. Discussions among Kansas education leaders had focused on how exactly to expel certain presentations of “DEI” content and systemic racism from mandatory courses. The final policy was broadened to cover a wider range of courses, in part a nod to lawmakers’ intent, while also narrowing the scope with explicit carveouts for teaching about race.

Under the initial proposal, presented to the board by its general counsel John Yeary in May, the “CRT” element of the restriction on “DEI-CRT-related content” encompassed “content that defines a conceptual framework, as the single and authoritative lens, establishing racism to be systemic within laws, policies, or institutions.” The final version instead defines CRT material as “content that presents racism as systemic within laws, policies, or institutions and promotes acceptance of that viewpoint rather than presenting it as a subject of scholarly, historical, or legal study.” Then there are caveats: “Discussions of race, racism, or the history of the civil rights movement” do not in themselves meet that definition...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/professors-can-teach-about-race-in-kansas-if-they-follow-these-rules.

Straws in the Wind - Part 297

From Inside Higher Ed: The Trump administration cut off funding for area studies and foreign language education in September, putting an end to the flow of financial support for centers and programs that assisted national security strategy for decades. Justifying the cuts, the administration has said these kinds of programs are “inconsistent with Administration priorities and do not advance American interests or values.” For years, area studies centers were funded through National Resource Center grants as part of Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Congress partially restored this funding in its most recent budget, but the damage to area studies may be irreversible. 

The University of Washington, home to one of the nation’s oldest area studies centers, lost $2.5 million in National Resource Center and foreign language grants—half of which went directly to student scholarships—for the 2025–26 academic year. The University of Michigan lost about $3.4 million and the University of Kansas lost $2 million. Western Washington University’s Center for Canadian-American Studies reportedly took a 70 percent hit to its budget after the Title VI funds were pulled.

...Facing a hostile presidential administration, institutions are unlikely to stick their necks out too far for area studies, said Zachary Lockman, a historian and professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic studies at New York University. “They’re skeptical. They’re all in austerity mode. They’re under attack,” Lockman said. “Many of them just want to fly under the radar and remain invisible, so giving money to people whom the Department of Education sees as enemies of the Trump administration doesn’t seem like a wise tactic to them.” ...

[The] symbiotic government–university partnership worked for a while. But in the 1970s, while the U.S. was at war in Vietnam, that relationship began to fracture, experts explained. Government officials started to think that they weren’t getting their anticipated return on investment, [Osamah] Khalil [of Syracuse University] said. It was never a requirement that recipients of federal fellowships work for the government afterward—and in large part, they did not, he said. “One of the things that came out of Vietnam was this idea that ‘We’re not getting the experts that we wanted out of this. We’re getting campus radicals who are protesting U.S. foreign policy’”... 

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/business/academic-programs/2026/03/26/area-studies-once-vital-wither-without-funding.

Straws in the Wind - Part 295

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: Faculty members and students at the University of Kansas recently voted no confidence in the institution’s chancellor, Douglas A. Girod, by an overwhelming margin — but the university is sharply disputing the vote’s validity. The results of an online survey were largely critical of Girod, with nearly 80 percent of respondents saying they didn’t have faith in his leadership. But Kansas administrators are calling the survey an “entirely unscientific, informal straw poll” created by two rogue faculty leaders and “shared only with a small subset of the university population — specifically a subset the authors knew would support their narrative.”

The survey results, and the university’s denunciation, arrive at a tumultuous time for Kansas. Changes in nationwide rules governing payments to athletes and a $450-million renovation to the football stadium have prompted questions about the university’s sports spending. And while the poll was live, the university was negotiating its first contract with the faculty union. While the parties have since come to a tentative agreement, a university spokesman characterized the vote as a “pressure tactic” designed to influence the process.

The poll was disseminated by the presidents of Kansas’ Faculty Senate and University Senate, two elected positions. But the faculty leaders acted independently in sending it, and the survey “does not represent a formal action of governance,” said Joe Monaco, associate vice chancellor for public affairs. The survey did not require respondents to verify their affiliation with Kansas, and allowed multiple submissions by the same user, casting doubt on its legitimacy, he said. The poll was also emailed directly to “specific groups the authors assumed would be aligned with their predetermined narratives” and posted on social-media accounts not affiliated with the university, Monaco added...

...The flow of funding between the university and its athletic department was a particular cause for concern. Historically, the athletic department has sent the university about $15 million each year as a kind of reimbursement for the free tuition, housing, and other benefits athletes enjoy, according to The Lawrence Times. But a landmark settlement in 2025 allowed universities to pay athletes directly for the first time, up to about $20 million per institution. That new expense has made athletic departments’ budgets tighter, including at Kansas, which has stopped the $15-million payments to the campus to help it make ends meet. In the memo to Girod and the board chair, Kansas’ Faculty Senate referenced “funds from a general fund or any academic pool of funds” being used to cover stipends for athletes. Monaco said no tuition or taxpayer money is being used to pay athletes...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/u-of-kansas-faculty-and-students-voted-no-confidence-in-the-chancellor-or-did-they.

Straws in the Wind - Part 238

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: ...The Kansas Board of Regents directed ...that tenured professors must now develop work plans that will be used for annual evaluations and undergo post-tenure review every five years, down from every seven. Those who receive an “unsatisfactory” annual evaluation will be “subject to dismissal, reassignment, an additional one-year improvement plan, or other personnel actions.”

Meanwhile, all full-time faculty members will be expected to teach a set number of credit hours per semester: six to nine for those at the state’s three research institutions — the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, and Wichita State University — and 12 for professors at the regional institutions — Pittsburg State University, Emporia State University, and Fort Hays State University. Each institution will determine the percentages of time faculty members should devote to teaching, research, and service, within ranges provided by the regents.

The new policies come one year after a bill allowing tenure to be “at any time revoked, limited, altered or otherwise modified by the awarding institution” or by regents was introduced in the Kansas House of Representatives. While that bill stalled, it signaled increasing legislative interest in tenure reform.

This year’s policy changes, which passed unanimously, were Kansas regents’ proactive attempt to placate Republican lawmakers who might continue to seek drastic changes, Rusty Monhollon, the board’s vice president for academic affairs, told The Chronicle. “That was our motivation: Having a stricter tenure or workload policy was preferable to not having tenure at all,” he said...

Full story at https://www.chronicle.com/article/another-states-public-universities-are-tightening-post-tenure-review-and-dictating-teaching-loads.

Straws in the Wind - Part 59

From the Lawrence Journal-World: University of Kansas employees with official KU email accounts soon will be prohibited from listing their preferred pronouns — he/she and they/them, for example — as part of their email signature lines. KU Chancellor Douglas Girod sent an email to KU faculty and staff members Tuesday notifying them that signature lines that communicate which pronouns the sender prefers were deemed to be out of compliance with a provision approved by the Kansas Legislature during its last session. KU employees — including student employees — must remove all such pronouns and other “gender ideology” from their KU work accounts by the end of this month.

“All employees shall comply with this directive by removing gender-identifying pronouns and personal pronoun series from their KU email signature blocks, webpages and Zoom/Teams screen IDs, and any other form of university communications,” Girod said in his email message to employees.

Girod said the Kansas Board of Regents, the entity that oversees KU and the state’s other public universities, recently made the determination that such gender pronouns are out of compliance with the direction of the Kansas Legislature, which included the requirement in a budget bill that provides funding for the universities. A majority of members in the Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature expressed various concerns about diversity, equity and inclusion policies on university campuses, and the budget proviso grew from those concerns. To not comply with the pronoun provision of the budget bill could put significant amounts of KU’s state funding at risk...

Full story at https://www2.ljworld.com/news/ku/2025/jul/22/ku-employees-must-remove-he-she-they-them-pronouns-from-email-signature-lines-as-part-of-state-directive/.

From KCRG: Governor Kim Reynolds has filed a complaint over a newly-released video of a University of Iowa employee talking about DEI. The video, posted on Fox News Tuesday, is heavily edited. It is unclear who took the video, or what led up the employee’s statements. In the video, Andrea Tinoco, Assistant Director of Leadership and Student Organization Development, makes several comments regarding DEI at the University of Iowa. During the conversation with the unknown individual, Tinoco says their website was scrubbed to remove DEI terms. The video then skips part of the conversation. Tinoco continues by saying they are “finding ways to operate around it”, and gives an example, stating “oh, we can’t use that word? ... Okay, ‘civic engagement’.”

...She then goes on to say DEI will stay in class, and that she doesn’t care. She also describes the University of Iowa as the “most combative” of the three universities, and says she is proud of the fight. Finally, Tinoco claims that DEI and student organizations still exist, despite the changes in the law. Governor Reynolds released a statement in response to the video Tuesday. She also filed a complaint against the University of Iowa with the Iowa Attorney General’s Office.

“I’m appalled by the remarks made in this video by a University of Iowa employee who blatantly admits to defying DEI restrictions I signed into law on May 9, 2024,” said Reynolds. “I already issued a letter to the Board of Regents on January 23, 2025, reminding university representatives to comply, not only with state law, but an executive order signed by President Trump ending implementation of DEI policies at public institutions. I will be referring this matter to Attorney General Brenna Bird for her review as it relates to Iowa’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Act.” ...

Full story at https://www.kcrg.com/2025/07/30/governor-responds-video-univ-iowa-employee-admitting-defying-dei-policies/.

More Trouble Ahead?

Yet another example of the clash between outside court standards and internal university review standards appears in Inside Higher Ed: ...Three judges on the Kansas Court of Appeals flagged from the start of a decision issued Friday that they didn't approve of the content of a series of tweets by Navid Yeasin, whom the University of Kansas expelled in part on the basis of those remarks about his ex-girlfriend. The tweets were "puerile and sexually harassing," the judges wrote. But the judges went on to say that doesn't matter. The university never demonstrated that Yeasin made the comments on Twitter while on campus or in connection with any university activity, and the university's student conduct code thus doesn't cover the tweets, the court found. The case has been closely watched beyond Kansas because of two issues -- only one of which was addressed in Friday's ruling, and that one only in part. That issue is the university's claim that it is required not only by its student conduct code but by Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 to punish offensive remarks made by one student to another on Twitter if they create a hostile environment for the second student. The appeals court rejected that argument although it did so largely on the way the university created its code of conduct and punished Yeasin. The other issue was whether Twitter posts are automatically protected by the First Amendment as free speech. While briefs by the American Civil Liberties Union and others argued that this protection does exist, the appeals court did not address that issue...

Full story at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/09/28/court-rules-u-kansas-cant-expel-students-over-remarks-twitter-made-campus

As we have been noting in prior posts, when public universities through internal processes dish out harsh punishments (the student was expelled in the case above), external courts are likely to examine the internal process and rationale closely and critically.