by the Associated Press:
University of Kansas professor Kevin Willmott is an Oscar winner.
Willmott won the award for best adapted screenplay Sunday night for his contribution to the film “BlacKkKlansman.” He and two other writers co-wrote the film with Spike Lee.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports that Willmott is the second Oscar winner connected to the university. Spokeswoman Erinn Barcomb-Peterson said William Inge, who graduated from Kansas in 1935, won a screenplay writing Oscar for the film “Splendor in the Grass” in 1962.
This was the first nomination for Willmott, who has been involved in several independent films.
Set in the mid-1970s, “BlacKkKlansman” is based on the memoir of Ron Stallworth, a black police officer in Colorado Springs who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan.
