By Marie Moyer | September 15, 2026 7:10 PM

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The University of Missouri is investigating allegations of staff violating federal and state laws against diversity, equity and inclusion practices after a video reportedly showing a professor expressing support for DEI surfaced Monday.

The video, filmed by Accuracy in Media with what appears to be a hidden camera, shows University of Missouri professor and chair of the Department of Sociology Wayne Brekhus speaking with an AIM investigator about DEI on campus. The interview was also allegedly filmed in December of 2025, according to a timestamp in the video. AIM later clarified with ABC 17 News that the date on the video was inaccurate and the interview was conducted in January 2026.

“I think we have a lot of awesome courses. And lots of us do, you know, DEI type of research,” Brekhus says in the video. “Lots of us do DEI types of research and things like that. I do things with identities and inequalities and used to do a lot of LGBTQ research and things like that.”

The conversation then moved to DEI centers on college campuses.

“Usually what places did is, like, they changed the name, or they put them under a different umbrella to make it less visible that it was DEI or things like that,” Brekhus says.

It is unclear when Brekhus was talking about institutions if the University of Missouri was included in making DEI programs less visible.

AIM said the video shows a public employee breaking the law.

“What we see consistently is that these administrators are breaking laws, deceiving laws, ignoring executive orders to push their radically divisive politics no matter what they’re told to do otherwise, and every taxpayer should be outraged,” AIM President Adam Guillette said.

University student group, Mizzou College Democrats said the interaction was overblown.

“Sociology is the study of social behavior and inequality,” Mizzou College Democrats President Thomas Bruns said. “It misunderstands what the point of the sociology department is. Their job is to research those things. So I didn’t see a problem with it.”

Several X users saw the video and pressured MU to take action. In response, the University of Missouri thanked several users for informing them of the video and reported that an investigation was to take place.

“Professor Brekhus’ conduct will be investigated and appropriate actions will be taken. Mizzou voluntarily eliminated all DEI programs and DEI requirements in the curriculum. Mizzou has complied with all federal directives to end DEI research projects,” a post on MU’s X account stated.

The university later shared a statement from Brekhus: “I apologize for my mistake. The video was taken last year as Mizzou was eliminating its DEI programs. I am fully aware that Mizzou no longer has DEI programs and does not conduct DEI research.”

MU posted that “appropriate actions will be taken” after an investigation.

“Mizzou voluntarily eliminated all DEI programs and DEI requirements in the curriculum. Mizzou has complied with all federal directives to end DEI research projects,” MU posted.

Read the rest of ABC 17’s article here.

The post ABC 17 Reports Mizzou Investigating Professor Following AIM Undercover Video appeared first on Accuracy In Media.

By Ryan Quinn | September 16, 2026

Last October, a Kentucky state senator emailed the general counsel at the state attorney general’s office with a complaint concerning a family member.

“My granddaughter goes to a public institution,” Republican Sen. Gary Boswell wrote in an email obtained via a public records request. “She is being required to take a DEI course. The professor told the class without knowing she was my granddaughter that she ‘changed the title of the course to avoid the state law.’”

“I want this professor fired or worse,” Boswell wrote. He alleged that the Murray State University course was using a book from Howard University professor Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist.

Christopher Thacker, the general counsel for the Kentucky attorney general’s office, checked with the university. Murray State said the course was one of multiple that could satisfy a requirement for one degree. Thacker said he’d follow up with Boswell, and that’s where emails on the subject end. Boswell and the targeted professor didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment, and Murray State didn’t provide comment.

These are among a raft of communications and documents provided by James Orlick, a University of Louisville Ph.D. candidate who filed the records request, that open a window into what Kentucky universities and their employees have faced after Kentucky Republicans passed House Bill 4 last year. State legislators overrode Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto to enact the broad anti-diversity, equity and inclusion law during the 2025 legislative session.

HB 4 bans what it defines as DEI offices, employees and training in public colleges and universities. It also prohibits affirmative action in hiring, awarding scholarships and selecting vendors. And it affects curriculum, though only regarding required courses. The law bars institutions from requiring courses whose “primary purpose is to indoctrinate participants with a discriminatory concept,” which it generally defines as one that “justifies or promotes differential treatment” for people based on “religion, race, sex, color or national origin.” The law tasks the attorney general’s office with enforcing it.

Differing interpretations of HB 4—from state politicians, state and university lawyers, activists and others—are also part of ongoing debates and disputes across multiple states about what DEI bans actually do or don’t prohibit, and whether universities are under- or overcomplying. Orlick, who said HB 4 cost him his job at Louisville, said seeing the emails has been traumatizing.

“State monitoring, political oversight, institutional restructuring and restrictions on university autonomy are tactics that we associate with governments such as Orbán’s Hungary or Putin’s Russia,” said Orlick, who stressed he was speaking in his personal capacity. “And I think that seeing some of these same mechanisms emerge in public higher ed should concern us.”

Thacker’s emails show him investigating various allegations of noncompliance with HB 4 that the attorney general’s office received from lawmakers, activists and others. Last September, he invited university presidents and their lawyers to a meeting the following month, telling them that “our review identified a few areas of apparent non-compliance.” The attorney general’s office didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment for this article.

Read the rest of Inside Higher Ed’s article here.

The post AIM’s Kentucky DEI Investigations Featured in Inside Higher Ed appeared first on Accuracy In Media.

Areeba Fatima | Sep 15, 2026

Mahmoud Khalil, Mohammed Ibrahim Zubairi, and other members of the Palestine Working Group (PWG) at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) filed a federal civil complaint on Monday accusing the university of failing to protect Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students from doxxing and harassment. Columbia suspended PWG—the last remaining named student organization with “Palestine” in its name—in September 2025.

The complaint names SIPA Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo, who was born in Israel and served in Israeli intelligence during her mandatory military service, claiming she helped contribute to a hostile environment on campus by enacting discriminatory policies and ignoring repeated reports of severe and coordinated harassment against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students as far back as 2019.

Speaking to the press, Khalil said the university hired private investigators to investigate him, a Columbia graduate student, while he led negotiations between protesters and the university administration during the 2024 pro-Palestine campus encampments that called for the university to disclose and divest from Israel. In March 2025, ICE agents abducted Khalil from his campus residence despite his status as a permanent resident. He spent 104 days in a Louisiana immigration jail, missing the birth of his first child before he was released in June 2025 by a federal judge who ruled that his arrest and detention likely violated the Constitution. Since then, the university has reached out to him only once—to ask him to leave his campus housing.

“We are suing Columbia because of its blatant disregard for our safety and well-being,” Khalil told Drop Site News. “Columbia put us through hell over the past three years,” Khalil said the university administration joined pro-Israel groups in targeting the Palestinian movement on campus.

The suit is just the latest against Columbia’s administration over its policies around the pro-Palestine student encampments. Last month, a group of Palestinian students and faculty filed a lawsuit against Columbia alleging that the university engaged in “anti-Palestinian discrimination and fostered a hostile learning and work environment.” In February 2025, three students filed a complaint against the school administration for their suspensions related to their pro-Palestine activism on campus, claiming the university violated its own policies during the disciplinary process and that the university targeted the students for their views.

Read the rest of Drop Site News’ article here.

The post Accuracy in Media Mentioned in Drop Site News Report on Columbia Lawsuit appeared first on Accuracy In Media.

By: Megan Mueller |Posted: Sep 15, 2026 / 02:32 PM CDT | Updated: Sep 15, 2026 / 02:32 PM CDT

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The University of Missouri is responding to a video that has surfaced on social media featuring a professor speaking on DEI at the school last year.

The nearly three-minute video was posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, Monday evening. The video shows a conversation with sociology Professor and Department Chair Wayne Brekhus with a visible time stamp of December 2025.

The conversation revolved around how many courses and research studies still have DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) aspects to them, despite the university eliminating all DEI-related programs and requirements.

Nonprofit conservative watchdog group Accuracy in Media began the video stating they were putting the University of Missouri to the test to see if the “radical initiatives were still alive and well on campus.”

“Lots of us do DEI types of research,” Brekhus said. “So, it’s really been tough on research. But so far, (the ban requirements) haven’t hit the curriculum. Usually, what places did, is kind of change the name or they put them under a different umbrella to make it less visible that it was DEI or things like that.”

The post garnered over 300,000 views as of noon Tuesday and has more than 150 replies. Among those responses, the University of Missouri commented with a statement from Brekhus acknowledging that the school no longer incorporates DEI requirements or programs, and added the following:

“Professor Brekhus’ conduct will be investigated and appropriate actions will be taken. Mizzou voluntarily eliminated all DEI programs and DEI requirements in the cirriculum…(and) has complied with all federal directives to end DEI research projects…We will continue to inform our faculty, staff and students to be aware of our policies and to be in compliance with state and federal laws and guidelines regarding DEI.”

Read the rest of FOX 2’s article here.

The post FOX 2 Covers Mizzou’s Response to AIM Undercover Video appeared first on Accuracy In Media.

Lydia Zweifel, Columbia Missourian | Sep 15, 2026

Conservative advocacy and watchdog group Accuracy in Media shared an undercover video on Monday of University of Missouri professor Wayne Brekhus speaking on diversity, equity and inclusion practices at Mizzou.

“Lots of us do DEI types of research,” Brekhus said in the recording. Toward the end of the video, the narrator expressed their concern with Mizzou’s curriculum, “No student should have to suffer through divisive radicalism in order to earn a degree,” the narrator said.

The university acknowledged the advocates and issued an investigation into Brekhus’ conduct, insisting that Mizzou is in compliance with federal directives to end DEI research.

“Professor Brekhus’ conduct will be investigated and appropriate actions will be taken. Mizzou voluntarily eliminated all DEI programs and DEI requirements in the curriculum,” the university said on X.

Read the rest of Columbia Missourian’s article here.

The post Columbia Missourian Covers AIM Investigation into DEI at Mizzou appeared first on Accuracy In Media.

By Andrew Lapin | September 15, 2026 3:37 pm

Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian Columbia University alum who was detained by the Trump administration last year, is suing his alma mater along with an Israeli dean of the school he attended for facilitating a “hostile environment” for pro-Palestinian students.

Khalil became a national symbol of the campus pro-Palestinian protest movement when he was detained in March 2025 after the government accused him of being aligned with terrorists. On Monday, he filed a civil rights lawsuit in federal court accusing the school of engaging in months-long “deliberate indifference” toward the harassment of pro-Palestinian students on campus, including at the hands of right-wing pro-Israel groups.

He contends that Columbia’s alleged indifference ultimately helped to lead to his 104-day detention by federal immigration authorities, during which he missed the birth of his first child, before being released after a federal judge ruled his detainment was likely unconstitutional. He is joined in the suit by members of the School of International and Public Affairs Palestine Working Group, a pro-Palestinian student group on campus.

“Columbia laid the groundwork for my targeting by the Trump administration through its deliberate indifference and discrimination aimed at intimidating Palestinian students,” Khalil told reporters at a press conference in New York on Monday.

In addition to the university, the suit also names Keren Yarhi-Milo, the dean of the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, who is Israeli-American, as a defendant. The complaint says that Yahi-Milo had unfairly accused Khalil, while a student in the school, of antisemitism and harassment.

In a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Columbia representatives defended Yarhi-Milo in general terms.

“Throughout her time at Columbia and during her service as dean, Dean Yarhi-Milo has worked with and supported students of all backgrounds, including our Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students,” the statement reads. “The University is grateful for her tireless efforts on behalf of our students and her commitment to a campus free of discrimination and harassment.”

Columbia representatives declined to comment further on the lawsuit but said that “creating a campus environment where every member of our community feels welcome, supported, and safe is ​fundamental to who we are as a university. It is also a responsibility we take seriously.”

Read the rest of JTA’s article here.

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By Jack Harvel September 15, 2026 4:47 PM

The University of Missouri said it’s investigating a professor who was covertly recorded by a conservative advocacy group seeking to expose diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses.

The chair of the university’s Department of Sociology, Wayne Brekhus, was recorded in what appears to be a candid conversation with a prospective student asking about the university’s DEI programs.

Brekhus says in the video that there is “DEI-types of research” at the university but that it has suffered amid a backlash against DEI.

“It’s been really tough on research, but so far they haven’t hit the curriculum,” Brekhus said in the video.

Brekhus also described how schools generally reorganized DEI programs rather than eliminate them. DEI is a broad framework of strategies meant to promote fair treatment, representation and participation, with a particular focus on underrepresented groups.

Read the rest of Kansas City Star’s article here.

The post AIM Investigation Drives Kansas City Star Coverage of Mizzou DEI Controversy appeared first on Accuracy In Media.

David Bernstein | 9.15.2026 3:24 PM

If you are someone who gets their news primarily from the New York Times and NPR, as many liberal-leaning Americans do, you often get a distorted picture of what is going on the US and the world. This is often less because of outright errors in reporting, and more about what isn’t said.

For example, each outlet barely covered the widespread nationwide rioting that accompanied Black Lives Matters protests in summer 2020. I still meet people who think the the primary violence that summer was from police manhandling protestors, and are completely unaware of the deaths, injuries and massive property damage attributable to rioters.

Similarly, I keep encountering people who have no idea that there was widespread antisemitic violence, intimidation, and threats on college campuses after Oct. 7, 2023, and instead think that university officials and later the Trump administration had no justification for clamping down on what they perceive as peaceful “pro-Palestine” protests. And that’s because they are being misinformed by sources like the Times and NPR.

Case in point: In a puff piece in yesterday’s New York Times about a lawsuit filed by Mahmoud Khalil, alleging discrimination by Columbia University against Palestinian students and their “pro-Palestine” allies, the Times reports: “The 2023 and 2024 protests divided the Columbia campus, with thousands joining in, and others, including some Jewish students, saying they were too disruptive or made them feel unsafe.”

Here, relying on a recent article of  mine, is some of what happened at Columbia, limited to violence, threats, and intimidation–and this involves only the incidents that were publicly reported:

In October 2023, an Israeli Columbia student was assaulted in front of Butler Library by a former student who was no longer affiliated with the university. The assailant allegedly struck the student with a stick; police arrested and charged the suspect. During a separate student walkout “for Palestine,” a Jewish student was allegedly shoved by a Columbia classmate wearing a keffiyeh and subsequently swarmed by protesters.

Another incident outside Butler Library was more explicitly antisemitic. According to a subsequent civil-rights complaint, an individual confronted a Jewish student while yelling “Free Palestine” and “Fuck the Jews.” The assailant allegedly made the motivation explicit, telling the student that he had singled him out “because you are a Jew.”

Other physical incidents followed. Columbia student Jonathan Lederer was assaulted while carrying Israeli flags on April 20, 2024; the source cited in my article reports that a suspect threw a rock at him. Lederer was assaulted again on December 11, 2024, while once again carrying an Israeli flag; this time, the assailant reportedly punched him and called him a “Nazi.” In another incident, a Jewish Columbia student wearing a kippah was spat upon and told, “I hope you guys suffer.”

These individual confrontations occurred against a background of increasingly intimidating mass protests. Demonstrators at Columbia shouted “Fuck the Jews,” “Death to Jews,” and “Fuck Israel,” attempted to instigate fights, and screamed at a rabbi who was praying with students.

Read the rest of Reason’s article here.

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Wayne Brekhus, Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Missouri, was recorded speaking with an AIM investigator about the status of DEI on campus.

When asked about equity, inclusion and DEI-related courses at the university, Brekhus made clear the ideology remains alive in both teaching and research.

“I think we have a lot of awesome courses. And lots of us do, you know, DEI type of research.”

He continued:

“Lots of us do DEI types of research and things like that. I do things with identities and inequalities and used to do a lot of LGBTQ research and things like that.”

When the investigator asked whether anti-racism was also a focus, Brekhus responded:

“Yeah, yeah … that’s a thing too. And you’ll get that in the courses as well.”

Missouri lawmakers acted against DEI, but the state’s restrictions leave a gaping loophole: higher education.

Brekhus acknowledged exactly that.

“So it’s been really tough on research. But so far they haven’t hit the curriculum.”

He also described how institutions elsewhere have responded to DEI restrictions—not necessarily by eliminating DEI, but by changing how it is labeled and organized.

“Usually what places did is, like, they changed the name or they put them under a different umbrella to make it less visible that it was DEI or things like that.”

Brekhus went even further, describing what he called “clever ways” institutions have used to preserve DEI operations:

“When they found clever ways to, like, continue to have DEI centers but not call them that. It was mostly cosmetic.”

That is precisely the problem with weak, toothless DEI bans.

Missouri students should not be forced to sit through divisive identity politics simply to earn a degree from a taxpayer-funded university.

Other states are moving toward stronger restrictions. Kansas and North Carolina have recently strengthened their approaches to DEI, including restrictions aimed at preventing identity politics from simply migrating into other areas of public institutions.

Missouri lawmakers now have a choice: leave a loophole big enough for DEI to survive–or close it.

Visit SaveMissouriStudents.com to send one email to the relevant Missouri officials and demand action.

The post “It Was Mostly Cosmetic”: Missouri Professor Reveals How DEI Survives State Bans appeared first on Accuracy In Media.

By Sharon Otterman | Sept. 14, 2026 Updated 3:11 p.m. ET

A group of pro-Palestinian former student activists, including Mahmoud Khalil, sued Columbia University in federal court on Monday, accusing the institution of failing to address the persistent and severe harassment they said they encountered as a result of their advocacy.

Mr. Khalil, 31, became the face of Columbia’s pro-Palestinian movement on March 8, 2025, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested him at his Columbia University apartment building, even though he was a legal permanent resident and not accused of a crime. He spent 104 days in detention, missing the birth of his first child.

In the weeks and months before his arrest, he had repeatedly asked Columbia administrators to help protect him against the escalating threats he was receiving for his pro-Palestinian advocacy, he said in an interview on Sunday. He said he did not receive assistance.

Columbia’s failure to support him was part of a pattern of “deliberate indifference” against him and other pro-Palestinian students that began even before the Hamas-led terror attacks of Oct. 7, according to the lawsuit that he and fellow former students filed on Monday in Manhattan.

“I’m not suing Columbia for what ICE did,” Mr. Khalil said. “I’m suing Columbia for creating the conditions for ICE to do what it did.”

Columbia declined to comment on the litigation, but released a general statement in response.

“Creating a campus environment where every member of our community feels welcome, supported and safe is fundamental to who we are as a university,” said Samantha Slater, a Columbia spokeswoman.

Mr. Khalil, who still faces deportation, emerged as a foil for the Trump administration during its aggressive crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus protests. The 2023 and 2024 protests divided the Columbia campus, with thousands joining in, and others, including some Jewish students, saying they were too disruptive or made them feel unsafe.

But Mr. Khalil’s detention marked a frightening new phase for student activists, sparking demonstrations nationwide and crystallizing concerns that under President Trump, even a legal permanent resident could be detained for political speech. In recent months, Mr. Khalil has also filed a lawsuit accusing Trump administration officials, pro-Israel groups and a conservative think tank of colluding to suppress his constitutional rights.

The lawsuit filed on Monday seeks to hold Columbia responsible for failing to end the harassment it claims was faced by more than a dozen members of the SIPA Palestine Working Group, an advocacy organization that Mr. Khalil led while a student at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs between 2023 and 2025.

The student group was formed in 2018 to “encourage a more holistic understanding of Palestine,” according to its mission statement. The lawsuit charges that when the fliers for the group’s events were torn down, or when group members faced anti-Palestinian or Islamophobic rhetoric from fellow students, Columbia did not do enough to stop it.

The lawsuit says that the treatment of the group worsened under the current dean of SIPA, Keren Yarhi-Milo, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit. After she began as dean in 2022, the group faced extra roadblocks when organizing events compared with other organizations, the lawsuit claims. When its events did take place, Columbia sent security personnel, which pro-Palestinian students found intimidating.

After the Oct. 7 attacks, an outside organization, Accuracy in Media, published photographs and names of student group members that were accessible only to people with Columbia passwords, the lawsuit said. The students were publicly shamed on a truck circling campus with their faces under the words “Columbia’s Leading Antisemites.”

When students met with Dean Yarhi-Milo to ask that she investigate who leaked the photographs, she initially dismissed their concerns, the lawsuit stated. The images were removed from the Columbia platform several days later, but the damage was already done, the lawsuit said.

Websites that Accuracy in Media created that accuse the former students of being antisemitic remain active.

In a statement, Adam Guillette, the president of Accuracy in Media, said his group had “repeatedly delivered accountability to Columbia’s pro-Hamas radicals,” using language that echoed the Trump administration’s description of pro-Palestinian campus protesters.

Read the rest of The New York Time’s article here.

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