High school teacher arrested at city meeting after clapping for anti-data center speech
A high school teacher in Kansas was arrested at a city commission meeting last week after clapping in support of an anti-data center speaker.
The 37-year-old physics teacher, Lux Claridge, was taken into custody on July 22 ahead of a planned vote by the Emporia City Commission on the allocation of 1,000 acres of rural land for the Flint Hills Digital Campus data center.
The arrest came after Emporia commissioner Monica Duncan warned those in attendance that anyone engaged in clapping, snapping fingers or making rude comments would be asked to leave, according to a Straight Arrow review of the video.
Footage of the incident shows a commissioner asking Emporia Police Chief Ed Owens to remove the next person who claps after Claridge was seen applauding a fellow constituent. After being surrounded by four police officers, Claridge can be heard saying that he has a right to speak before requesting that he be dragged out of the meeting.
In a statement to Facebook, the Emporia Police Department said it arrested and booked Claridge into the Lyon County Jail “on charges of interference with law enforcement and disorderly conduct.”
“The Emporia Police Department remains committed to ensuring public meetings are conducted safely and in an orderly manner, while also respecting the rights of all citizens to participate in the civic process,” the statement said.
The meeting ended with the city council approving the data center in a 5-0 vote.
After posting bail and being released from custody, Claridge told local outlet KWCH that he was undeterred by the arrest.
“I’m glad to be out — but this is an inconvenience, really,” he said. “It’s not really deterring me from speaking out or I guess, clapping.”
Emporia, with a population of around 25,000, is just one of a growing number of small towns and cities being eyed for data center development. Yet the push for new data centers has been met with wide-scale opposition from local communities, resulting in “at least 75 data center projects worth approximately $130 billion,” according to the research organization Data Center Watch, being “blocked or delayed in a single quarter — roughly matching the scale of all of 2025 in just three months.”
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Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
