LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas placed a lecturer on administrative leave Wednesday after a video surfaced of him suggesting men who refuse to vote for a woman president solely because she is a woman should be shot.
A KU spokeswoman identified the lecturer as Phillip Lowcock who is a faculty member in KU’s department of health, sport and exercise sciences. His comments during a lecture earlier this semester were posted on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter, Wednesday morning, and garnered more than 2 million views by afternoon.
In it, Lowcock says the following:
“There are going to be some males in our society that will refuse to vote for a potential female president because they don’t think females are smart enough to be president. We could line all those guys up and shoot ‘em. They clearly don’t understand the way the world works.”
He continued: “Did I say that? Scratch that from the recording. I don’t want the deans hearing that I said that.”
KU ISSUED a statement via X calling the comments an “inappropriate reference to violence,” and confirmed Lowcock was placed on administrative leave.
“The instructor offers his sincerest apologies and deeply regrets the situation. 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,” the statement said.
Ned Ryun, a conservative pundit and activist and son of former Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Ryun of Kansas, initially posted the 32-second video on X, tagging Kansas’ current U.S. Senators.
U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall from Kansas, also a Republican, wrote Wednesday afternoon in a post on X, “This guy shouldn’t be within 100 yards of a university and I am calling for his swift termination.”
The senator also called for KU to fire Lowcock.
National free speech group the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, defended Lowcock and requested KU to refrain from punishing him.
“The First Amendment protects professors who tell brief, off-topic jokes in the classroom,” a statement from FIRE said. “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.”
FIRE called Lowcock’s comments an “off-handed joke” rather than a serious intention to commit violence, which is protected speech, the statement said.
A STATEMENT from the Kansas GOP chairman, Mike Brown, misidentified Lowcock as former KU journalism professor David Guth, who the university also placed on leave more than a decade ago when he made comments critical of the National Rifle Association, according to 2013 reporting by the Lawrence Journal-World. Guth retired in 2019, according to his KU website and personal résumé.
Brown mistakenly attributed Lowcock’s comments in the video posted to X to Guth, calling him “radical” and “deranged” and “teaching vile and toxic hate.”
