The University of Kansas instructor featured in a viral video endorsing violence against men who wouldn’t consider voting for a woman to be president is no longer employed by the university.
KU announced Phillip Lowcock’s departure in a message from Provost Barbara Bichelmeyer late Friday morning.
“I am writing today to inform you that the instructor has left the university. 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,” Bichelmeyer wrote.
“The instructor has apologized to me and other university leaders. He has explained to us that 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.”
A university spokesperson declined to say whether Lowcock, a health sports and exercise instructor who joined KU in 1993, left his position voluntarily or was fired.
“That’s a personnel issue the university is not able to discuss,” Erinn Barcomb-Peterson said in an email.
Lowcock, who also served as director of international student-athlete support, was immediately placed on administrative leave Wednesday when administrators became aware of the inflammatory remarks he made during a lecture earlier this semester.
“[If you believe] guys are smarter than girls, you’ve got some serious problems. That’s what frustrates me,” Lowcock says in the video, which has now been viewed 3.5 million times on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“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,” Lowcock continues. “We could line all those guys up and shoot them. They clearly don’t understand the way the world works. Did I say that? Scratch that from the recording. I don’t want the deans hearing that I said that.”
Lowcock could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
The KU provost’s message goes on to say that the university fully supports academic freedom for teachers in the classroom but doesn’t condone violent rhetoric.
“Academic freedom, however, is not a license for suggestions of violence like we saw in the video,” Bichelmeyer wrote.
“It’s no secret that higher education and, more broadly, our society continue to grapple with issues of free speech, care and respect for others, and civic engagement.”
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