A University of Kansas professor has been placed on administrative leave after he was filmed saying men won’t vote for women because their intelligence needs to be “lined up and shot.”
Phillip Lowcock, a faculty member in KU’s Department of Health, Sports and Exercise Sciences, spoke to a group of students in a university lecture hall as he made the unnerving comments.
“If you have boys who think you’re smarter than girls, you’re in serious trouble,” Lowcock began.
‘It’s what frustrates me. There will be men in our society who will still refuse to vote for a potential female president because they think women are not smart enough to be president.
“We can line up all these guys and shoot them. They clearly don’t understand how the world works,” he added.
Moments after he made the statement, it became clear that Lowcock knew his ill-advised comments would be poorly received.
‘Did I say that? Just take that out of the recordings. I don’t want the deans to hear that I said that!’ he said, still on camera.
Unfortunately for Lowcock, the video clip shot earlier this semester has since gone viral with more than 3 million views since it was posted Wednesday morning.
The university took relatively quick action, and within seven hours of the video being posted, Lowcock was forced to go on administrative leave while he issued an apology statement.
‘The instructor sincerely apologizes and deeply regrets the situation. “His intention was to emphasize his advocacy for women’s rights and equality, and he acknowledges that he has done a very poor job in doing so,” the university said in a statement.
Lowcock had attended the university since 1984, when he worked as a graduate teaching assistant. He teaches a class “taken by a majority of first-year student-athletes.”
Beginning in 2015, he served as an academic advisor for multiple athletics teams while doing support work for international student-athletes.
Those commenting on the video seemed confused about the context of the discussion being had.
A lesson plan on the screen was titled ‘Sleep Cycles’ and the content appeared to be about the differences in the amount of sleep men and women get.
Two Republican senators in Kansas were shocked by Lowcock’s comments
Lowcock is seen in an earlier profile photo from 2015. He had attended the university since 1984 when he worked as a graduate teaching assistant
Among those commenting on ‘
Fellow Republican Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas added: “This is disturbing and inappropriate. There should never be a call to violence anywhere in the classroom. We need to cool the political rhetoric and be respectful and civil to each other, especially someone charged with educating our young people.”
The national freedom group, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), defended Lowcock and asked the university not to punish him, calling Lowcock’s comments a “thoughtless joke” rather than a serious intention to commit violence.
“The First Amendment protects professors who tell short, off-topic jokes in class,” a statement from FIRE said.
‘It also protects against hyperbole. To constitute a genuine threat, a speaker must express a serious intention to commit an act of unlawful violence against a specific individual or group of individuals.”
FIRE called Lowcock’s comments a “thoughtless joke” rather than a serious intent to commit violence, which are protected speech, the statement said.