The College Fix

KU confirms the instructor’s departure with reactions split between calls for First Amendment protection and support for the school’s decision

An instructor who joked about shooting men who won’t vote for a female president is no longer employed at the University of Kansas.

“I am writing today to inform you that the instructor has left the university,” KU Vice Chancellor Barbara Bichelmeyer wrote in a Friday statement, according to The Washington Times.

“We are working to identify a new instructor to assume responsibility for his classes, and we are working with the students impacted by this change,” she wrote.

It is unclear whether the school dismissed Phillip Lowcock or he left on his own.

In a video clip, Lowcock says men who think women are not “smart enough to be president” frustrate him, as previously reported by The College Fix.

“We can line up all those guys and shoot ‘em, they clearly don’t understand the way the world works,” Lowcock (pictured) says.

He immediately regretted his statement, saying, “Did I say that? Scratch that from the recording I don’t want the deans hearing that I said that.”

KU placed the instructor on administrative leave following the incident.

Bichelmeyer stated that Lowcock apologized to “university leaders” and “deeply regrets the situation,” the Washington Times reported.

“He has explained to us that his intent was to emphasize his advocacy for women’s rights and equality, and he recognizes he did a very poor job of doing so,” she stated.

While free speech is “essential to the functioning of our university,” it “is not a license for suggestions of violence like we saw in the video,” the vice chancellor stated.

Some experts are not on board with the decision. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is calling on the school to rescind any disciplinary action against Lowlock.

FIRE Program Officer Graham Piro wrote:

The First Amendment protects professors who tell brief, off-topic jokes in the classroom. It also protects hyperbole. In order to constitute a true threat, a speaker must communicate a serious intent to commit an act of unlawful violence against a specific individual or a group of individuals.

The viral video shows an instructor making an off-handed joke — not communicating a serious intent to commit unlawful violence. That’s protected speech, and people advocating that the instructor be punished for his expression are advocating for the erosion of the First Amendment.

FIRE calls on the University of Kansas to refrain from punishing faculty for protected speech and to restore this instructor to the classroom immediately.

However, a U.S. Senator celebrated the news that Lowcock left the school.

“I am glad to report that the professor who called for men to be ‘lined up and shot,’ declaring open season on people who don’t plan to vote for Kamala Harris, is no longer an employee at KU,” Republican Sen. Roger Marshall wrote in a post on X.

Sen. Marshall also called for the instructor’s “swift termination” in a previous post following the incident.

MORE: ‘Offensive’ social media posts are free speech, legal group tells USD

IMAGE: University of Kansas

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