A Kansas State University civil rights administrator has reportedly been suspended pending investigation of alleged support for Hamas and Marxism.

The Washington Free Beacon reported last month that Derron Borders, an investigator in the university’s civil rights and Title IX office, “is part of a secretive Marxist book club that calls for the total destruction’ of Israel, hails the terrorist group Hamas, and defends the murders of Israeli civilians.”

After former Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer blasted the university on KCMO radio’s Kevin Kietzman Uncanceled show this week, Kietzman reported Borders had been suspended by the university.

“I can confirm that Kansas State University has suspended the Civil Rights Admin after a massive day of blowback jamming phone lines to Presidents office and Title IX office,” Kietzman posted on X. “Congrats @DrJeffColyer this is what leaders do!”

“Together we demanded action and K-State listened,” posted Colyer, who is running to become governor again.

“Sources confirm that the Civil Rights Administrator has been suspended and an outside investigation is underway to determine how this happened. I’ve been in contact with K-State leadership and thanked them for doing the right thing. It is paramount to protect our Kansas students and [uphold] our values.

“And thank YOU to the many K-Staters and Kansans who spoke up and jammed the phone lines. Your voices made this happen. This is only the beginning. We will keep pushing until accountability is delivered. EMAW! [Every Man A Wildcat]”

Derron Borders

“No sympathy” for Oct. 7 victims

As reported by the Free Beacon:

“Derron Borders, who joined the university’s civil rights and Title IX office in May 2024, is a member of the Kansas Socialist Book Club, an anti-colonial Marxist group based in Manhattan, Kansas, the Washington Free Beacon has found.

“The organization, formed in 2022, has embraced extremist views on Israel over the Jewish state’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks from Hamas. In a manifesto last year, the Kansas Socialist Book Club called for the ‘complete and total destruction’ of Israel and expressed ‘unwavering support’ for Hamas.”

“We remain steadfast in our support of Palestinian liberation, whatever that ends up looking like,” the Free Beacon quotes the club as saying, as well as having “no sympathy” for innocent Israelis killed on Oct. 7, 2023.

“F*** your fake outrage at Palestine when you’ve literally been silent about the violence perpetuated by Israel against Palestine every day,” Borders reportedly posted that day.

The socialist book club, according to the Free Beacon, “also signed an open letter with other radical groups that defended Elias Rodriguez, the left-wing activist who assassinated Israeli embassy employees Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on May 21.”

“The Combat Antisemitism Movement is appalled that Kansas State University has hired Derron Borders,” the organization wrote Wednesday, “who publicly attempted to justify Hamas’ barbaric October 7th attacks, including the rape and mutilation of women and children, as was widely reported in 2023.

“Mr. Borders now serves in a role investigating civil rights and Title IX complaints. No Jewish student, or any student holding views contrary to his, can have confidence in the fairness of such investigations. His comments after October 7th alone should have disqualified him from this position of trust.”

A movement against the “capitalist regime”

The Free Beacon identifies Borders as “co-secretary of the Flint Hills Democratic Socialists of America, a Kansas-based affiliate of DSA that has hosted events with the Kansas Socialist Book Club.”

The Free Beacon writes that Borders “took part in a May 30 virtual meeting in which the book club discussed Rodriguez’s killings … Borders expressed trepidation toward Rodriguez’s attack, not because the Chicago man killed innocent Jews, but because the killings were unlikely to spark a ‘movement’ against the ‘capitalist regime.’”

Both Colyer and the Combat Antisemitism Movement have called for an investigation into Borders’s hiring – particularly since he previously came under withering fire while a diversity and inclusion director at Cornell University for what the New York Post termed “disturbing social media posts supporting Hamas and dismissing the terror group’s slaughter of innocent civilians as a ‘resistance.’”

Colyer received high praise from a fellow legislator, as well as Kietzman, for apparently prompting K-State to take action.

“Gov. Colyer showed real leadership and stopped this immediately when no other state leader would. That’s what strong leaders do,” state Sen. Doug Shane, R-Louisburg, said in a statement.

How did this happen?

Kietzman noted that Colyer, a practicing physician, managed to shine a light on the situation and inspire action by K-State when no one else had.

“How is it that a man that was in surgery all morning walks into a radio station in scrubs, makes some comments about what’s going on at K-State, and four hours later the man is suspended?” he said on air. “Why aren’t there people in Topeka and the state level and at K-State that are catching these things? …

“It was the listeners of this radio station, the podcast. But more than anything, it was Gov. Jeff Colyer for pointing this out. … Way to go, Gov. Colyer. Excellent win.”

“I am pleased the good folks at K-State are taking this seriously,” Colyer said in a press release Thursday. “This individual has a long public history of pro-terrorism, anti-Semitism, racist abuse, and Marxist rants and was suspended for this at Cornell University.

“Hiring a racist as a state employee and investigator of civil rights violations is outrageous and insults the values of every Kansan. Thanks to our many KSU friends and alumni who stood up against this nonsense.”

The Heartlander reached out to K-State for comment and hadn’t heard back as of publication time.