Professor leaves KU after ‘very inappropriate’ comments during lecture

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A professor at the University of Kansas (KU) has ‘left’ the university after a video emerged viral on X earlier this week the professor makes unnerving comments about men not voting for women based on their intelligence.

KU Provost and Vice Chancellor Barbara A. Bichelmeyer said the professor has left the university. On Wednesday, he was placed on administrative leave.

Video of the KU professor’s violent comment leads the university to place him on leave

In the video you can hear him say: “What frustrates me is that there will be men in our society who will refuse to vote for a potential female president because they don’t think women are smart enough to be president.”

He continued, “We could line up all those guys and shoot them. They clearly don’t understand how the world works.”

The professor then tried to retract his statement, saying, “Did I say that? Just take that out of the recordings. I don’t want the deans to hear that I said that.”

KU released a statement Friday saying the instructor “has left the university.”

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Here is part of Bichelmeyer’s statement:

“Today I am writing to inform you that the lecturer has left the university. We are working to find a new instructor who will take responsibility for his classes, and we are working with the students affected by this change.

The instructor has apologized to me and other university leaders. He explained to us that his intention was to emphasize his advocacy for women’s rights and equality, and he acknowledges that he has done very poorly in that regard.

The free expression of ideas is essential to the functioning of our university, and we fully support the academic freedom of our faculty in the delivery of classroom instruction. However, academic freedom is not a license for suggestions of violence, as we saw in the video. Although we embrace the role of our university as a place for all kinds of dialogue, violent rhetoric is never acceptable.“

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Bichelmeyer also announced that the school is “working to identify a new instructor who will assume responsibility for his classes, and we are working with the students affected by this change.”

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