Amendment would muzzle Kansas high school students, squelch left-leaning political speech
Lawrence High School students and residents protest U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Jan. 27, 2026, at 19th and Louisiana Street in Lawrence, across the street from the school. (Photo by Maya Smith for Kansas Reflector)
The Kansas Legislature has decided that some speech deserves government protection.
Other speech deserves government persecution.
The votes have come throughout the session, each one worse than the other. You might have to tilt your head a bit to see the majority’s lecherous fondling of state-sanctioned censorship, but once you glimpse the mortifying mise-en-scène, you won’t forget it. Courts and vetoes may save Kansans from the worst of it. But take heed of these accelerating attacks on the First Amendment.
Let’s work through the examples in reverse order. On Tuesday, a divided Senate narrowly approved a budget amendment that would harshly punish public school districts for unauthorized walkouts by students.
Wait, you may ask. Wasn’t this the same Legislature that venerated Charlie Kirk for his brave free speech?
It sure is.
You continue: And isn’t this the same Legislature that welcomes busloads of private school students every year to demonstrate for public funding of their institutions?
You’ve got that right.
You see, Lawrence public school students have made recent headlines for protesting against abuses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Back in 2023, they protested against anti-trans legislation. Over in Shawnee Mission, students have followed suit. Olathe saw similar protests (and fisticuffs).
One can only imagine how lawmakers detest the idea that young people in Kansas — the state they have worked so hard to remodel into a rightwing sanctuary — express liberal ideas.
They therefore voted to deploy the might of state government against them. More specifically, lawmakers voted to deploy the might of state government against superintendents. And I’m sure that social media provocateurs targeting Lawrence superintendent Jeanice Kerr Swift over immigration policy had nothing to do with that at all!
“Lawrence Public Schools has a strong, proud history of supporting student voice through student peaceful protests, activism, and respectful civil engagement as integral to a strong, healthy democracy,” Swift wrote about the ICE protests.
Nuts to that, legislators responded. Shut it down.
Elsewhere, the House-passed budget withholds funds from state universities if they teach diversity, equity and inclusion in required classes. Thank goodness someone stuck up for homogeneity, prejudice and omission.
Both chambers put all their chips on celebrating Kirk, rather than homegrown free speech hero William Allen White. One of those men bravely fought the Ku Klux Klan, while the other repeatedly flirted with bigotry. We honored the latter of those two.
And we can’t ignore how the anti-trans law, House Substitute for Senate Bill 244, disenfranchises and silences Kansans with the threat of legal action for simply being themselves. I can think of no greater act of censorship.
As the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, public high school students enjoy robust free speech rights. As long as their actions don’t disrupt the learning of their fellow students, they can raise their voices along with the rest of us.
Besides the Olathe situation, I’m not aware of any serious complaints or issues with the recent ICE protests. Amendment sponsor Sen. Michael Murphy, R-Sylvia, didn’t mention any.
As written, the amendment poses impossible choices for students, faculty and administrators.
Veteran journalist Dave Helling pointed out on Kansas City Stack: “Murphy’s proposal is impossibly vague. Will districts be penalized if a handful of teens skip class and head out for a hamburger? If so, authorities are going to be really busy. If not, then districts will face penalties based on the content of the speech, which is blatantly unconstitutional.”
The only conclusion one can reach, the only takeaway from this amendment and earlier bill, is that Kansas lawmakers want to protect conservative speech while punishing left-leaning expression.
Every single Kansan, whatever his or her ideological position, should worry about that.
If one party can decide what expression to protect and what expression to prosecute, the other party will make its own decisions later, when it take charge.
Full disclosure: My son participated in one of the Lawrence protests, of his own free will. As a working journalist, I don’t participate in such public activism.
Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. 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.