KU activists’ call for inclusion education meets online backlash from conservatives (+videos)

Activists pushing for the University of Kansas to adopt mandatory inclusion training argued that emotional and psychological violence can be as damaging as physical violence during a rare discussion with reporters Wednesday.

Katherine Rainey, a senior from Shawnee, said that the student group Rock Chalk Invisible Hawk wants to see the university develop training for students and faculty that promotes “a conscious effort to understand others” and teaches “how to interact and uplift people who are not like you.”

KU’s Provost Jeffrey Vitter said in a statement Tuesday that the university would develop an action plan to address this and other demands, including “mandatory education, through facilitated sessions, on inclusion and belonging for all students, faculty, staff, and administrators and a plan for accountability.”

The students’ demands and the university’s response has been met with a backlash from notable Kansas conservatives on social media.

“‘Mandatory diversity training?’- sounds Orwellian,” said Clay Barker, executive director of the Kansas Republican Party, in a Facebook post. “Will it include instruction that most of the people in Kansas are conservative and have issues with their taxes going to fund liberal ideology? Conservatives believe in individual uniqueness, liberals in assigning people to abstract identity groups and pitting them against each other.”

Reached by phone, Barker, who is a graduate of KU School of Law, clarified that he didn’t want to pass judgment until he sees the university’s formal plan.

“Maybe it’s just the wording. But the first question is diversity of what? Ideas or these groups that people are put in?” Barker said, warning he didn’t want to see the university pursue “post-modern indoctrination.”

Angela De Rocha, spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services, mocked the idea in the same thread — on an Associated Press reporter’s public Facebook page — calling it “‘re-education’ training” and warning that “anyone who demurs will be guilty of Thoughtcrime.”

The activists’ demands and the negative reaction coincide with a national debate about racism and free speech on college campuses in recent weeks.

Members of the Invisible Hawk group argued that hate speech should not be considered free speech.

“First of all, I don’t have free speech. Let’s just be real with that. We don’t have free speech,” said Caleb Stephens, a member of the group who graduated from KU in 2014. “Because if we said some of the things that people say we would be — anything, just insert any negative thing that would happen from getting hate mail to death threats.”

“If free speech was really free speech this would be a different conversation,” he said.

Stephens, who works as a therapist, said that emotional trauma inflicted through speech can sometimes affect a person longer than physical trauma. Among the demands the group has made is that the university establish a team of multicultural counselors to address the mental health needs of students of color.

“You can have your opinion,” said Rainey, who is studying psychology and anthropology. “You can think whatever you want, but when your opinion infringes on others’ rights and it harms someone, it is wrong. And that is unacceptable.”

Micah Kubic, executive director of the Kansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that hate speech is covered by the First Amendment unless a threat is explicitly made.

“If you threaten to harm someone that is not necessarily protected,” Kubic said. “Simply using a racial slur or using other hateful speech, speech that we consider wrong and inappropriate … can still be protected speech.”

While freedom of speech allows a person to say hateful things, he said, “it also means that we are allowed to respond to those things.”

Kubic said he saw no problem with the inclusivity training as long as it is not coupled with a speech code.

This story was originally published November 18, 2015 at 6:07 PM with the headline "KU activists’ call for inclusion education meets online backlash from conservatives (+videos)."