To the editor:

I have three reactions to the flag removal at KU.

First, an academic environment needs the open exchange of ideas, Chancellor Douglas Girod must learn to say “no” to political pressure on free speech. The only public safety threats were generated by the politicians who started this brouhaha in the first place. Find your spine, chancellor.

Second, as a lifelong registered Republican voter, I am appalled by Gov. Jeff Colyer’s blatant play for votes demanding the flag be removed. Is he trying to outdo Kris Kobach’s gun Jeep with flag paint? If the flag art at KU is so offensive, why is Colyer not also demanding that Kobach remove the flag image from his Jeep? Under the U.S. flag code that is just as offensive. In this Trumpian era, Republicans constantly stress “Constitutionalism,” yet they repeatedly step on First Amendment guarantees of liberty. Should Colyer survive the primary (anybody but Kobach!), he will not have my vote.

Third, Steve Watkins posturing about an artwork demeaning soldiers also suppresses free speech, and for that same reason he will not get my vote. Five family members have served; one gave all. I honor them and all who served by supporting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, by voting, by flying the flag proudly at my house, not by political grandstanding in a plea for votes by someone whose only qualification for office seems to be dog mushing.

Either we have free speech or we don’t. I prefer that we have it, warts and all.

Keith M. Wood,

Lawrence