M.A. (Mike) Kautsch

Mike Kautsch left his post as dean of the KU School of Journalism at the end of the 1996-1997 academic year to join the KU Law faculty and develop a program on Media, Law and Policy at the School of Law. Now called Media, Law and Technology, the program includes courses on media law, First Amendment advocacy, privacy and intellectual property.  Through the program, students also may earn a Certificate in Media, Law and Technology.

Kautsch holds degrees in journalism and law from the University of Iowa, and he worked as a journalist for about 10 years before joining the KU School of Journalism in 1979. He has long worked with the media bar and engages in research and makes public presentations on the First Amendment and other topics related to media and the law. He is a contributor to a compendium on media access to courts published by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Arlington, Virginia.  He testifies before Kansas legislative committees on media-related bills, participates annually in planning and presenting a national Media and the Law Seminar in Kansas City, Missouri, chairs the Media Bar Committee of the Kansas Bar Association (KBA) and serves on the legislative affairs committee of the Media, Law Resource Center in New York. His honors include a number of teaching awards and an Outstanding Service Award from the KBA (1997) in recognition of his contributions to media-bar relations. His other service activities in the state include a charter membership in the Kansas Sunshine Coalition for Open Government and six years as a gubernatorial appointee to the Kansas Humanities Council Board of Directors.

He currently chairs a non-profit organization, the Kansas Institute for Government Transparency, which he formed with four KU Law alumni who are among his former students. Mike has been quoted by many major news outlets and was inducted into the Kansas Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2017. After 40 years of teaching at KU, he retired in 2019.