Students rally around WSU president threatened for canceling Ivanka Trump speech
Wichita State University students and their leaders rallied to support university President Jay Golden Wednesday as state regents met to decide whether to fire him over the cancellation of a commencement speech by Ivanka Trump.
About 70 demonstrators gathered Wednesday afternoon in a hastily called rally to support Golden and protest donor influence over the university.
The theme of the rally was “students over profits,” and several speakers railed against corporate control of university decisions, especially the influence wielded by the wealthy and politically connected Koch Industries.
The protest took place in the parking lot of Charles Koch Arena, renovated and renamed in the early 2000s after a $6 million donation from Koch.
Brandon Eckerman, a student representative on the selection committee that hired Golden, said university decisions shouldn’t be influenced by “one billionaire donor.”
He said his admiration for Golden is so strong that he wants to graduate under his administration “because he’s someone I want to be.”
“Golden is getting all the heat from this, even though all he did was answer for us,” said Tajahnae Stocker, a WSU student in her fourth year and helped organize the rally. “He put students over Ivanka and politics, and I think that’s something we haven’t had around here in a very long time in a president.
“The Koch Brothers have had a huge influence for way too long, and now is about time to start supporting us instead of supporting a check to the university.”
Also Wednesday, a petition started by the Black Student Union at WSU had generated more than 4,000 signatures supporting Golden in its first four hours online.
Trump, the daughter of and special advisor to President Donald Trump, had recorded the keynote speech for the online graduation ceremony for WSU Tech, the university’s trade-school arm.
But Golden canceled the speech after complaints and a petition from hundreds of WSU students who saw her as too divisive a figure.
“Golden is getting all the heat from this, even though all he did was answer for us,” said Tajahnae Stocker, a WSU student in her fourth year and helped organize Wednesday’s rally. “He put students over Ivanka and politics, and I think that’s something we haven’t had around here in a very long time in a president.”
The decision to drop the Ivanka Trump speech inflamed some influential donors to the university, including some who said it would threaten future donations from Koch Industries, which has given at least $15 million over the past seven years in major gifts to support basketball, business school and other programs.
Koch Industries issued a statement Wednesday morning saying it “is continuing its commitments to WSU, and we will continue evaluating new funding opportunities as they arise.” A company spokesperson said the company was not seeking the dismissal of Golden and that the company supports the right to free speech on campus. “We believe in academic freedom and respect the university’s independence in making employment decisions,” the statement said.
Under pressure, the regents called a 3 p.m. Wednesday special teleconference meeting, where they almost immediately recessed to closed session in a private Zoom chatroom with Golden and a handful of staff advisors.
It was not a popular decision with those who tuned into the regents’ YouTube channel to watch.
They continued a chat thread long after their screens went dark, posting hundreds of messages supporting Golden and criticizing the regents for making the meeting private.
The students who rallied at WSU Wednesday compared Golden’s administration favorably with that of his predecessor, the late John Bardo.
Bardo got unending rave reviews from the Wichita business community and local government and is credited with transforming the university into an aircraft research and basketball powerhouse.
But that came with a cost, the students said.
“When former President Bardo was here, he had a big influence on campus when it comes to prioritizing business and engineering over liberal arts and sciences,” said student Tajahnae Stocker. “Under Golden, the first thing he did was heard our frustrations, heard what we were upset about, and he listened . . . and then he started giving us feedback and ideas.”
Three top student government leaders wrote a letter to the regents praising Golden and the decision to cancel the Ivanka Trump address.
“On behalf of over 16,000 students, far and wide, home and abroad, past, present and future, we ask that you continue to support Dr. Golden as our President, to support him and back him up to ensure he executes the vision we all have of Wichita State University,” said the letter, signed by student body president Rija Kahn, Student Senate Speaker Olivia Babin, and Kitrina Miller, a former student body president and student representative on the search committee that picked Golden as president.
The student leaders said it would have been a mistake to allow Ivanka Trump to address the graduating class at WSU Tech, especially amid widespread protests across the nation in the wake of the Minneapolis Police killing of George Floyd.
President Trump has stood in opposition to the protesters, including a widely criticized tweet on Tuesday in which he boosted an unlikely conspiracy theory: that an elderly protester injured by police in Buffalo, N.Y. was actually an Antifa tech whiz armed with a device to jam police communications.
“Regardless of political affiliation, it is undeniable that President Donald Trump is a divisive figure, especially for People of Color,” the WSU student leaders’ letter said. “The Trump name, regardless of the first name it is attached to, is a divisive political statement, especially during a time of incredible civil unrest in our country.
“A state institution like Wichita State University should be wary of allowing something this controversial to happen on our campus.”
This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 2:31 PM.
