Years after using racial slur in meeting, Kansas candidate defends his position
One of the candidates for the Kansas State Board of Education has had a history of controversy on the state board.
Steve Roberts is a math tutor, rideshare driver and licensed teacher with a background in trucking, engineering, education and environmental work. He is running in District 3 against Amy Diediker, a Democrat, and Jim McMullen, another Republican who has also faced backlash.
The Republican served two terms on the State Board of Education in District 2, being first elected in 2012 and reelected in 2016, after running unsuccessfully in 2008 as a Libertarian. He was voted out in 2020.
In 2013, Roberts used a racial slur at a board meeting.
He defended his usage of the word “100%,” The Topeka Capital-Journal reported at the time. In 2026, he continues to say the slur.
On April 16, 2013, the topic at hand was African American history, and former Topeka NAACP president the Rev. Ben Scott was advocating to ensure that students learn Black history.
After Scott’s speech, Roberts made a statement that New York City had banned the use of the “n-word,” but that Martin Luther King Jr. himself had used the word in his letter from Birmingham Jail, finding the ban of the word unjust.
“The idea that the city of New York would make it illegal to say the N-word, that doesn’t seem American to me,” Roberts said. “I speculated aloud, would that mean that if Chris Brock or Dave Chappelle was doing their standup with that language at the Beacon Theater, that they would be hauled off to jail? That just doesn’t sound right.”
His usage of the word “stunned” and offended members of the board and NAACP members, said the Capital-Journal’s article.
NAACP member Preston Williams assumed that Roberts was intending to suggest that the slur should be less offensive, she said in the article.
Carolyn Campbell, a board member and past regional vice-president of the NAACP Topeka chapter, addressed his comments at the next board meeting, reciting in full Dr. King’s letter while repeating the n-word twice. Back then, and still, Roberts felt like he was treated unfairly because of her address, he said in a recent interview.
“If we’re keeping score, Carolyn Campbell said it twice, and I said it once,” said Roberts. “I was done dirty in a political setting because I had the temerity to actually say what we were talking about.”
The NAACP’s position on the usage of the n-word is that “the stigma of this word embodies and invokes painful memories and inhumane ill-will”; and many have lost their lives due to the beliefs perpetuated by the use of the word, according to a civil rights resolution from 2014.
“The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People shall not condone, award, or engage any person that uses the N-word in any capacity, or in any artistic endeavor that does not allude to the historical context of the word, or that does not highlight the prejudicial nature of the word,” said the resolution.
Speaking to The Star recently, Roberts agreed that the word is “ugly, repugnant,” he said, although he continued to use the word in his interview.
Roberts said race isn’t real, but something far left activists are trying to convince others of, Roberts said.
“Race is something we just made up out of thin air, and I will hold to that,” he said.
He agrees that racism happens, but attributes it to the fact that people aren’t treating race with colorblindness, he expressed.
“One of the worst things we do is we stamp poor or minority on the poor schools that have an abundance of poor and minority students, and it’s just like stamping it on their forehead,” he said. “That’s just like labeling the school as deficient from the get-go.”
Roberts’s past actions have had impacts on his campaigns since, he said.
Another controversy
He has also been criticized by fellow board members for promoting his own math tutoring service to students in 2013. He was seen passing out brochures that directed students to subscribe to his services for $15 per month, according to an article by The Kansas City Star.
“A couple of us felt like it was unethical,” said Sally Cauble, vice chairwoman of the board, in the article.
He was passing out pamphlets to share his testimony as a tutor that you can still be an educator without a degree in education, he said.
“The system says I wasn’t a math teacher at all until I got my degree in education,” he said. “I was advertising the idea that you don’t necessarily have to go to teacher’s college in order to be really great in the classroom.”
Roberts’ 2026 campaign
This election season, Roberts is again running for a seat on the state board of education. He wants to “fix American education, starting in Kansas,” according to his talking points document from his website
“It’s not the end-all and be-all. It’s not a perfect document, but it points us in the right direction to give our schools the upgrade that we’ve needed for now for decades,” Roberts said.
A couple of outcomes that he hopes to create for schools are: to stop labeling children by race, banning phones and earbuds from classrooms, reducing mandated testing and singing Christmas carols in primary school.