An instructor at the University of Kansas who made headlines this week for telling students that men who don’t want to vote for a woman should be executed is no longer employed by the school.
KU provost and executive vice chancellor Barbara A. Bichelmeyer said in a statement Friday that Phillip Lowcock “has left the university,” without saying whether the move was voluntary or forced.
“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 said. “The instructor has apologized to me and other university leaders.”
Lowcock — who taught in the Big 12 university’s Health, Sport and Exercise Science department and served as the KU baseball team’s primary academic adviser — had been recorded saying it “frustrates” him that “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 can line all those guys up and shoot them,” he said. “They clearly don’t understand the way the world works.”
Lowcock immediately caught himself and seemed to realize he’d said something he shouldn’t have.
“Did I say that? Scratch that from the recording, I don’t want the dean hearing that I said that,” he quipped.
The video clip was later shared on X by conservative activist Ned Ryun, the son of former US Rep. Jim Ryun (R-Kan.)
Several Republican lawmakers quickly moved to condemn Lowcock’s words, calling on the university to fire him.
“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,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), a KU med school alum, declared Friday on X.
The university initially placed Lowcock on administrative leave after the incident was made public.
Bichelmeyer said that while the lecturer had “explained to us that his intent was to emphasize his advocacy for women’s rights and equality,” he also “recognizes he did a very poor job of doing so.”
“The free expression of ideas is essential to the functioning of our university, and we fully support the academic freedom of our teachers as they engage in classroom instruction,” she said in the statement. “Academic freedom, however, is not a license for suggestions of violence like we saw in the video.”
“While we embrace our university’s role as a place for all kinds of dialogue, violent rhetoric is never acceptable.”
