House bill tackles allegedly discriminatory course content, mandates civics class

TOPEKA — Kansas House Republicans stirred an academic hornet’s nest Tuesday with a bill imposing a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion as well as critical race theory in most classes counted toward degree requirements at the state’s public universities.

At the same time, GOP Reps. Susan Humphries, Megan Steele, Kristey Williams and Bob Lewis sought support for a mandate within House Bill 2428 directing universities offer freshman orientation programs focused on the First Amendment and force students to take a class in civics to earn a bachelor’s degree. Implementation of the bill at the six state universities would cost at least $5 million.

Opponents to the bill — titled the Freedom from Indoctrination Act — outnumbered advocates by a two-to-one margin during a hearing at the Capitol delivering rival interpretations of DEI, CRT, academic freedom, critical thinking, dissent, and ideological conformity.

Williams, an Augusta Republican and frequent critic of DEI who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Kansas, told members of the House committee that numerous studies showed as many as 90% of U.S. college faculty self-identified as liberal. It was imperative, she said, for the Legislature to block “compelled speech” by countering the indoctrination occurring on state-supported campuses in Kansas.

“This bill allows for teaching controversial subjects, open inquiry and the examination of history and public policy,” she said. “It prohibits mandatory ideological statements, required belief affirmations and any institutional pressure to conform to a particular political or social doctrine.”

Rep. Bob Lewis, a Garden City Republican who earned a law degree at Stanford University, said DEI and CRT were tools for promoting racial, ethnic and gender discrimination. He said general courses at Kansas’ higher education institutions frequently promoted DEI and CRT concepts. He said the English 100 course at Kansas State University directly challenged students to reconsider views on gender or identity politics.

“It’s like they’re throwing the students into a washing machine to process them out,” he said. “They’re supposed to come out with different ideas.”

Democratic Rep. Kirk Haskins of Topeka, a professor at Baker University, and Democratic Rep. Barbara Ballard of Lawrence, who has worked at KU since 1980, said the Legislature shouldn’t pass a bill dictating the shape of higher education curriculum.

“It’s political theater,” said Haskins, who earned a doctorate in higher education at KU. “It’s an unnecessary bill. I think they’re way out over their skis.”

Ballard, with a doctorate in counseling from KU, concurred: “Probably should stay in their own lane.”

The GOP’s bill

Under HB 2428, Kansas public postsecondary institutions would be prohibited from requiring students to enroll in courses with DEI or CRT content if the class was tied to earning a degree.

Course content defined as DEI or CRT would include topics such as whiteness, institutional racism, unconscious bias, gender identity, social justice and race-based reparations. The proposed Kansas law would say offending content included information that racially neutral or colorblind laws perpetrated oppression, injustice, privilege, white supremacy and inequity.

However, instruction on slavery, Native American genocide, the Holocaust or internment of Japanese Americans wouldn’t be forbidden. The statute would allow an institution engaged in a course of study “primarily focused” on racial, ethnic or gender studies to apply for an exemption.

The bill would require, starting in the 2027-2028 academic rear, that students complete a class delving into the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and Federalist Papers, but also took into account “political ideologies such as communism and totalitarianism.”

In addition, all freshmen orientation programs would delve into elements of the First Amendment’s basic rights of speech, press, petition religion and assembly. If an institution wanted to include DEI or CRT information in student orientations, it would have to offer parallel orientation opportunities for students that were void of that material.

Academic chill

Kerry Gooch, a Kansas Black Leadership Council board member and a K-State graduate, said the House legislation would weaken degree programs by directing students in education, social work, health care and other professions to avoid learning about perspectives or life experiences different from their own.

He said the prohibition on content related to cultural competence, social justice, allyship and identity didn’t mesh with a requirement that students examine the magnitude of landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

“It is difficult to understand how students can meaningfully study those cases, including decisions like Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, without engaging honestly with the historical and systemic realities those cases addressed,” Gooch said. “Omitting that context risks producing an incomplete and misleading understanding of our own history.”

Gooch said the bill didn’t “promote academic rigor or freedom. It substitutes legislative restrictions for educational judgment.”

Mike Harris, vice president of the American Federation of Teachers-Kansas, said the organization of educators, students and staff opposed the bill because it undermined rather than strengthened free speech and academic freedom in Kansas higher education. He said students learned best in an environment of open inquiry, viewpoint diversity and robust debate.

“When the state prescribes content, dictates titles or targets disfavored topics, it replaces viewpoint-neutral protection with viewpoint-based control,” Harris said.

He said prior restraint on lawful speech would result in fewer controversial readings, fewer difficult conversations and fewer opportunities for students to practice civil disagreement. The academic chill would extend beyond humanities to fields requiring real-world depth on business ethics, health disparities, public administration and criminal justice, he said.

Eugene Rice, professor of philosophy at Fort Hays State University and a representative of the Kansas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, said universities and the Kansas Board of Regents were better suited than the Legislature to formulate curricula.

He said the bill would result in delegitimizing dozens of courses that had gone through rigorous reviews. It would drop a new requirement on thousands of students working toward degrees, he said.

“HB 2428 treats Kansas college and university students as though they were thoroughly unable to handle opposing viewpoints, controversial theories or to make up their own minds,” said Rice, who earned a doctorate at Marquette University.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

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