Kansas State University shut down its Spectrum Center by July 31, responding to new state law banning DEI offices and related practices. Yet, the core messaging and ideology persist under a new label.
The institution renamed its DEI office the Office of Access and Opportunity while retaining promotion of DEI ideas like “microaggressions” and “intersectionality.” Conservative activists warn ideological programs continue despite the charade.
Kansas State’s dean of students, President Thomas Lane, announced the Spectrum Center would “cease operations” in a campus-wide letter on July 23. The closure followed the passage of Kansas’s Senate Bill 125, part of the 2025 budget bill, which penalizes DEI-related offices, training, and pronoun usage in email signatures .
After the shutdown, K-State quietly changed the name of its DEI office to the “Office of Access and Opportunity,” preserving much of its previous content. Trainings still address “microaggressions,” use the “Social Identity Wheel,” and encourage reflection on overlapping identities such as race, gender, and other classifications.
Young America’s Foundation (YAF) filed a Civil Rights Complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights in March. It asserts that this renaming is misleading and represents a “shell game” disguised as compliance. YAF also alleges continued programming includes ethnicity-based pay scales, racial-focused athletic initiatives, and so-called “decolonized spaces”.
Silas Thoennes, chairman of KSU’s YAF chapter, said, “The Spectrum Center was the embodiment of leftist ideology. Its closure was a win, but much work remains”.
This development echoes similar responses at Wichita State and the University of Kansas, which have also dismantled visible DEI structures but may use rebranded programs to continue promotion of the ideology
