Lecturer reveals Washburn University changed nothing after Kansas DEI ban
March 18, 2026
Another Washburn University faculty member has admitted his school has preserved Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts, even after receiving warnings to remove it.
“We got a notice to look at all of our stuff and take out the word ‘diversity’ and all that sort of stuff,” Washburn education lecturer Craig Carter told Accuracy in Media’s undercover investigative journalist. “To my knowledge, we didn’t do any of that here.”
He assured AIM’s investigator that DEI is definitely still embedded in the curriculum at Washburn.
“A lot of times we use other words for diversity,” he was recorded saying on AIM’s hidden camera. “We talk about inclusion, you know, and stuff like that. For the most part, we haven’t been… I mean, I haven’t changed anything that I say or do in the classroom.”
Across the country, AIM has observed this strategy of shifting language to disguise woke DEI efforts. But we are making sure it doesn’t continue to fly under the radar under different names.
Carter noted that schools are getting stripped of funding for their continued DEI efforts, but claimed that Washburn hasn’t yet been “targeted.”
When AIM President Adam Guillette visited Carter in Kansas, he wasn’t willing to say as much.
Carter immediately referred Guillette to the chair of Washburn’s School of Applied Studies, Cherry Steffen.
She was also unwilling to confirm or deny whether DEI was still being practiced in her department.
Steffen even instructed Carter not to engage with Guillette. “I don’t want you to answer these questions,” she said.
Guillette was referred to Washburn’s Director of Internal Communications and Brand Management, Joy Bailes, who seemed to need a refresher on Kansas state law.
Upon viewing AIM’s recording of Carter’s DEI admission, she asked, “Did he know he was being interviewed?”
After being informed that Carter was unaware of AIM’s hidden camera, Bailes claimed, “You can’t just come in, you have to tell people they’re being interviewed. That’s Kansas law.”
But that’s not true. Kansas is a one-party consent state, meaning only the undercover journalist needed to give permission to record their conversation.
Guillette spoke with three different administrators, none of whom were willing to answer his questions about whether DEI was ongoing.
These schools have proven time and again that they won’t fess up to their covert DEI operations in public. That’s why AIM employs hidden camera journalism to extract the truth.
Last year, Kansas’s legislature banned DEI in state agencies, including public institutions of higher education.
The Kansas Board of Regents also issued a directive to public state universities to eliminate all positions, mandates, policies, programs, preferences, activities, and training relating to DEI. Employees were required to remove pronouns from their email signatures and business cards.
President Trump has issued his own executive orders banning the woke ideology from institutions that receive federal funding.
AIM won’t let this go unnoticed. We will continue flagging public colleges and universities that continue to push divisive DEI in defiance of state and federal laws.
Go to DEIinKansas.com to send one message directly to all relevant officials. Tell them it’s time to hold higher education institutions accountable for driving destructive DEI.