Can former Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer define “Wokeism”? Consider the oxpecker bird.

Former Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer speaks to an audience at Fort Hays State University on Sept. 30. He's running in the Republican primary for governor. (Photo by Sam Foglesong for Kansas Reflector)

Jeff Colyer stopped by Fort Hays State University to speak to students and community members about his campaign for governor on Sept. 30.

In a 30-minute address, Colyer touched on classic stump speech themes: recounting his public service and leadership experience, declaring Hays one of the most special places in the world and sprinkling in humor by adding, “Don’t tell the people in Johnson County!” He also followed what has become standard practice for lower-level GOP candidates by stressing his allegiance and closeness to President Donald Trump.

Beyond the clichés, however, Colyer offered little in the way of substantive policy solutions to Kansas problems, notably education.

The former governor lamented education standards in Kansas, claiming that only one in three third graders could read at a third-grade level. What’s to blame? According to Colyer it’s “Wokeism” and diversity, equity and inclusion. Both, he told an audience member, need to be taken out, “root and branch,” from our education system.

I pressed Colyer on the issue, asking him which specific policies he planned to remove and how they were directly contributing to falling education standards in the state.

His response was scattered.

He argued for reexamining the K–12 curriculum and asking “where it’s leading us.” He said that local school boards should be given tools so “their only option is not just a woke option.” He never explained what that “woke option” entailed or how it had become the only one available. Instead, he pointed to an apparently much-needed alternative based on “modern educational science,” along with “phonics and some basic educational parameters.”

Colyer’s remarks imply that Kansas classrooms don’t include “modern educational science” or “basic educational parameters.” He has said elsewhere that Kansas schools need education not indoctrination, a slogan that portrays Kansas schools as dystopian propaganda mills.

In the comments under one of Colyer’s recent Facebook posts, Kansas teachers took issue with his framing of Kansas education as indoctrination:

• “Believing teachers are ‘indoctrinating’ children to do anything but write their names on their assignments? Hard pass.”
• “When was the last time you were actually in a classroom? You have no clue what goes on in our classrooms. How about supporting teachers instead of falsely accusing them of ‘indoctrination’?”
• “I would invite you to visit classrooms with me in the Wichita Public Schools. I think the experience would change your mind.”

After his initial answer to my question, I told Colyer that he still hadn’t explained what “Wokeism” was or how it was responsible for Kansas education standards.

The candidate then defined “Wokeism” as “something that gets rid of any sort of merit, that it is a politically inspired outcome. That’s what you’re looking for, that’s what you’re grading people on.” He did not expand upon what this politically inspired outcome might be or where or who it was coming from.

Colyer wants voters to believe that DEI and “Wokeism” are so damaging and so ingrained in our school system that they need to be torn out “root and branch,” but he couldn’t identify either the roots or the branches.

It was a shocking lack of clarity from someone seeking the state’s highest office. Colyer earned a graduate degree from Cambridge and has a wealth of international and domestic leadership experience. He knows that social challenges like education are complex and seldom influenced by a single factor.

Consider that Kansas has the second-highest rate of teachers leaving the profession in the country. Many of them complain that they are overworked and underpaid. Or consider the well-documented harms of social media on K-12 students, including shortened attention spans, lower academic motivation and a host of other mental health issues. These are just some of the factors that might contribute to falling education standards in Kansas. None was mentioned by Colyer.

This is the problem in an era of culture-war politics and a Trump-led GOP: Candidates like Colyer no longer need to worry about crafting policy solutions to complex problems. Regurgitating culture-war rhetoric and clinging to the president is enough to secure political success.

In nature, we’d call this mutualism, a symbiotic relationship that benefits both species.

Think of the oxpecker bird perched on a rhino’s back, plucking off ticks in exchange for a safe perch and a free ride. For GOP politicians, it’s much the same. Hug the president close, polish his reputation and echo his talking points. In return, political survival is virtually guaranteed without having to do any pesky problem solving.

Oxpeckers can live on a diet of sour ticks, unaware of the indignity of their position, which involves existing in a near-permanent cloud of farts emanating from one of the gassiest animals on the savannah.

Through their sycophancy to the president, GOP politicians like Colyer have created a flatulent environment of their own where they subsist on the sour tics of Trump’s culture war politics. But unlike the oxpecker, human beings are not immune to extended exposure in such an undignified environment. Prolonged sycophancy takes a toll on the human soul.

I hope that GOP politicians come to their senses and extricate themselves from their obsequious position. I wish it for their own sake but also for that of Kansas teachers, students and parents who stand to lose the most from the reductive politics and atrophied problem solving that now define so much of the GOP.

Sam Foglesong is a scholar of African Studies and a writer who lives in Hays. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.