On Sept. 16 in the Great Hall of the Memorial Union, Iowa State alumnus Joe Losee was listening to the lecture “My Battle with Mental Illness: Finding Hope in the Midst of Suffering” when Losee said he thought something was off.

The speaker at the lecture was Jake Sullivan, former Cyclone basketball player and a youth and family minister at a church in Minnesota.

A half-hour into the lecture, Losee said he heard a weird comment that seemed out of place compared to the previously passionate lecture.

“My wife and I are sitting there listening to this lecture, he is very passionate, he is very open and talking from his heart,” Losee said. “But halfway through he was talking about these important parts of his healing process and its connection to his faith background and there was a weird comment.”

According to the transcript, this was when Sullivan stated: “Out of respect, right, for Iowa State University and this platform, I’m not gonna go on the depths of this journey.”

Losee said he found this odd and sent in a question.

“Based on that comment in the middle, I sent one saying ‘Did Iowa State tell you not to talk about religion?'” Losee said. “It didn’t get asked, but I didn’t think a lot of it because I figured there were a lot of questions being sent in.”

Losee was not the only person who asked a question that was not answered.

“On the day of my presentation I was also informed that all questions during the question/answer portion of the program would be sent in via text message in order to protect those in the audience who might be suffering and afraid to ask a question publicly,” Sullivan said in a statement to the Iowa State Daily. “It seemed logical to me at the time. During the question and answer portion of the presentation there was a question asked about why I speak about my mental illness utilizing the phrase ‘seasons’ rather than ‘episodes.’ While attempting to answer the question I was cut off by the moderator letting me know I could not take the answer into a Christ exalting direction. I was simply answering the question with authenticity and complete honesty and informed the moderator I would finish answering the question. To say the moment was awkward would be an understatement.

“As the evening concluded I had numerous people inform me that they had texted in questions that had a spiritual bend to them that were never asked; essentially causing questions to be censored so as to stay away from inducing me to share about my faith in Jesus and how it relates to my mental illness journey.”

At about an hour into the lecture, another comment was made, this time not by Sullivan.

This comment came when Sullivan was answering a question about his wording. He was using the term “seasons” a lot and an audience member had asked about it. During his answer Sullivan discussed how he believed God has taken him through different seasons to get where he is now.

According to the lecture transcript, that is when Michelle Roling, senior staff therapist for Student Counseling Services and the moderator for the lecture, interjected with “Careful there Jake,” and Sullivan switched gears and stopped discussing anything to do with religion while answering the question.

“I knew, I knew right then that there was something going on, that he had been told, in my opinion, what he could and could not talk about,” Losee said. “I just felt weird, so I told my wife I was ready to go home and we left. As I was driving home, I was thinking about it and I was wondering if he was, for lack of a better word, censored.”

Losee then went on the next day to contact Roling to ask her about the lecture.

“I asked her, ‘Did you tell Jake what he could and couldn’t talk about?’ and she said ‘well it’s guided by the lecture committee,’” Losee said. “She said they instruct speakers to avoid talking about politics, faith and any other controversial subjects. I found this weird because I’ve looked at the lecture series and many of them are controversial topics. She also said that before his speech the committee required her to speak to him again because they knew that his story was ‘intertwined with his faith’ and that he needed to avoid getting into that topic.”

Sullivan corroborated Roling’s conversation with Losee with a statement to the Iowa State Daily.

“Prior to arriving on campus it was made clear to me that my message needed to remain on the topic of mental illness, and that I was not to enter into the spiritual component regarding my personal journey of following after Jesus,” Sullivan said in a statement to the Iowa State Daily. “If I could not agree to this I would not be allowed to be the keynote speaker. Much of my story of pain, suffering, hope and healing are intertwined with my faith journey of becoming a Christian. However, I agreed to the censoring of important details of my journey for the sake of providing hope and connection for those suffering.”

During the conversation with Losee, Roling said Sullivan was paid through an honorarium, and because of that he had to abide by the Committee on Lectures request when it came to certain speaking topics.

“The Committee on Lectures, a joint student and faculty/staff committee, voted in May 2019 to support the lecture with funding after asking for and receiving an assurance via ISU NAMI [National Alliance on Mental Illness] on Campus that Mr. Sullivan, a youth and family minister at a church in Minnesota, would focus his talk on his mental health journey and not give a faith-based talk,” said Amanda Knief, director of the lectures program, in a statement to the Iowa State Daily. “Iowa State is a state-sponsored university and as such the Committee on Lectures does not co-sponsor events that promote a particular religious perspective, include or encourage prayer or put pressure on others to participate in religious activity.

No one with the Committee on Lectures or the Lectures Program asked Mr. Sullivan to not speak about his faith or religion.”

After talking with Roling, Losee proceeded to reach out and speak with Knief.

“She said yes we did talk to him and tell what he could and couldn’t talk about and that that was legal and okay because he was a paid speaker,” Losee said.

Losee said that nothing was disclosed to the audience before the lecture that Sullivan would have to avoid certain topics and that he felt the lecture orchestrated in a way that controlled the message.