The Lion Breaks Down AIM’s Kansas DEI Investigation
March 16, 2026
A Kansas State University employee admitted the university still uses DEI under a different name, which is in violation of state law, a national investigation by Accuracy in Media revealed last week.
Kansas State Academic Advisor Lindsey Thyer reassured a “student,” who was actually an undercover journalist, that DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion – still exists at the school and removing it would be “not quality education.”
“I’ve learned that the philosophy here is like, while they are saying that they’re going to take it away like changing the name of things, they’re still doing it,” she revealed. “Not quite as bad as some other schools but we’re definitely, yeah.”
The university defines DEI as something “intended to intentionally give preference to individuals or groups, to the exclusion of others, on the basis of race, color, or national origin.”
Senate Bill 125, passed last year, created a law requiring state agencies – which includes public schools and universities – to eliminate DEI positions, programs, training programs, the use of state funds for DEI, and removal of gender ideology such as pronouns from employee email signatures.
Accuracy in Media President Adam Guillette told KCMO Talk Radio host Pete Mundo on Monday that he initially started with an investigation in K-12 schools that were supposed to be banning critical race theory.
“Not surprisingly, administrator after administrator would brag to us about how they break the law, deceive parents, trick parents, circumvent the law,” he said. “And when these DEI bans went into effect I figured, well gosh – if these K-12 principals and administrators who kind of have to answer to the parents aren’t following the law – the unaccountable radicals of higher ed, I bet they’re totally ignoring it.”
He then moved on to investigate schools in red states with a DEI ban and visited most Kansas universities. He promised more videos of noncompliance in higher education are on their way.
“Kansas was the one I was perhaps most looking forward to because you have perhaps the second-best DEI ban in the country, much stronger than many of the other ones.”