Kansas professor falsely accused of espionage wants university to pay for firing, harm to reputation

By: Anna Kaminski

Outlets: Kansas Reflector

Published: August 10, 2026

Words: 334

Last Updated: 1 week, 1 day ago

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TOPEKA — An anonymous tip accusing a Chinese-American chemist and researcher of espionage spurred the University of Kansas into action, notifying the U.S. Department of Justice and building a case against its own employee, Feng “Franklin” Tao said in a lawsuit.

Tao was a tenured chemical engineering professor at KU in 2019 when he became one of the first professors arrested under the first Trump administration’s “China Initiative,” a DOJ campaign purportedly created to thwart …

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