The killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk while he was speaking at Utah Valley University has spurred widespread concerns about whether his assassination will have a chilling effect on politically charged campus debates and the appearance of provocative speakers.
Some observers on the political Right have hope that colleges will continue to facilitate such on-campus conversations in the wake of Kirk’s death. Others fear that schools, where liberalism is the prevailing ideology, may be apprehensive toward providing a platform for disfavored speech, unwilling to contend with security challenges, or cave to pressure campaigns from far-left mobs.
In interviews with the Washington Examiner, key stakeholders, including speakers, school officials, and student activists, weighed in on what Kirk’s murder means for the future of campus speeches and free debate in American academia.
Courage on the front lines of the culture war
Conservative student groups, like Kirk’s Turning Point USA, declare they will soldier on, though operationally, some security measures may need to be tweaked.
Ben Shapiro, the most sought-after campus speaker for Young America’s Foundation, a student activism organization that brings conservative pundits to hold Q&A-style debates at colleges nationwide, recently denied reports that he is scrapping a lecture series following Kirk’s death.
“That’s bullsh*t,” Shapiro said via video message about the “false” rumors.
Striking a defiant tone during Thursday’s episode of his Daily Wire show, he vowed to “never” back down from debating.
“We’re going to pick up that blood-stained microphone where Charlie left it,” Shapiro said. “And to those who would intimidate, who would seek to stop us, who would seek to end free discussion, who believe that they have ownership over public spaces and can violently threaten and kill people who speak freely, we are not going to stop. And I have two words: F**k you.”
YAF president Scott Walker, formerly the Republican governor of Wisconsin, indicated in internal communications that the organization will review security measures and may change venues for future events.
In response to suggestions that YAF should stop organizing on-campus speaking engagements altogether, Walker said the nonprofit organization will continue doing so in honor of Kirk’s life work.
Also undeterred is athlete-turned-activist Riley Gaines, the host of Outkick’s “Gaines for Girls” and a TPUSA contributor who has faced threats herself for speaking out on college campuses against the hijacking of women’s sports by biological males.
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Speaking to the Washington Examiner, she shared concerns about her own safety, especially as an expectant mother with a baby on the way.
“I’m bringing a life into this world any day now,” Gaines said. “I have to worry about my daughter, my family. There are things to consider before continuing on with the plethora of campuses I had scheduled for the fall, some of those where I was meant to be alongside Charlie Kirk.”
Gaines told the Washington Examiner that she would have been there with Kirk this week if she was not so far along in her pregnancy. “And that, to me, is a scary thought,” she said. “It really is.”
Heightened security risks and speaking freely in the face of threats
Kirk’s assassination is likely to result in beefed-up security measures around campus speeches that typically attract counterprotesters, agitators, and violent actors.
Gaines mentioned some schools, already hostile to right-leaning speakers, often excessively charge conservative student groups exorbitantly higher security fees than their left-wing counterparts.
For example, in February 2024, a student TPUSA chapter that invited Gaines as a guest speaker successfully sued the University of New Mexico for trying to impose a $10,000 security fee to deter her from coming to campus. Around that time, Gaines said, a drag queen event at UNM featuring an LGBT activist did not cost any security services.
She speculated that colleges could consider what happened with Kirk a liability, and she wondered whether universities would now be less willing to provide event space for speakers, which is seen as polarizing.
Dr. Meaghan Mobbs, the director of the Independent Women’s Center for American Safety and Security, warned that violence of this nature will spread fear and may lead to a retreat from public discourse.
“That is precisely the goal of political violence: to silence, to intimidate, and to make people afraid to speak,” Mobbs told the Washington Examiner. “If colleges respond by deciding it is simply too costly or too risky to host certain speakers, then we have allowed violence to determine the boundaries of debate. That would be devastating not only to higher education but to the health of our Republic.”
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Debate and disagreement are not threats to freedom, she said, rather the very lifeblood of America as a nation founded on the contest of ideas. “When we prevent the circulation of different and even deeply controversial ideas, we erode the very foundation of what has sustained our democracy,” Mobbs explained.
Student activists call on school administrators to take preventive action
At Boston University, previously the home of Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research, the College Republicans chapter sent a letter on the day of Kirk’s death to the school president, requesting the university administration provide adequate security for the group’s activities.
In the request, Boston University College Republicans cited posts celebrating Kirk’s assassination on the BU sub-Reddit and YikYak, a social media platform popular among college students. The online rhetoric hailing his death reveals how dangerous the political climate on campus has become, BUCR said.
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“It does make you scared,” BUCR president Zac Segal told the Washington Examiner, “because if I agree with his viewpoints, does that mean that they want to kill me as well?”
Many members of BUCR feel they cannot openly affiliate with the College Republicans, the executive board said, and those who do are met with marginalization, social intimidation, and slurs.
“Boston University is one of the most left-leaning, liberal schools in the country. So it is really rare to find conservative students or students who agree with you. That makes the Republicans club so valuable,” added BUCR vice president Philip Wohltorf, a legislative aide in the Massachusetts state Senate.
BUCR offers a welcoming space for conservative students to talk about their beliefs without being labeled “fascist, racist, a Nazi, and so on,” Wohltorf told the Washington Examiner.
Segal said the presence of campus police, even just one officer, at BUCR meetings would be reassuring.
A spokesperson for the New England college said the school will “take all necessary steps to ensure the safety and security of our guests and the BU community.”
“We’ll continue to do so along with assistance from appropriate local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies,” BU executive director of media relations Colin Riley told the Washington Examiner.
Riley pointed to how BU, over the years, has hosted speakers across the political spectrum, from Shapiro, brought by YAF, to anti-racist activist Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.
Shapiro’s 2019 appearance sparked mass protests and intense negotiations with student administrators over security costs, venue size, and other logistical “considerations,” including potentially cutting the audience capacity in half.
How will colleges handle campus speeches moving forward?
Some conservative colleges are standing by their policies on free speech despite leftist threats.
Hillsdale College, a conservative Christian school in Michigan, which has hosted a number of prominent figures in the Republican Party, most recently Education Secretary Linda McMahon, said it is not altering its free speech practices.
“Our speech policy at Hillsdale—for those who teach and study here as well as for visiting speakers—is that you may assert and defend any argument you conceive, as long as you do so in a way that is civil, academic, and conducive to thought and deliberation,” Hillsdale College assistant director of media relations Bruno Cortes told the Washington Examiner.
CONSERVATIVES WON’T ‘BACK DOWN’ IN FACE OF LEFTIST VIOLENCE
Eric Hogue, the president of Colorado Christian University, said he sees safety and dialogue not as competing values, but principles that must be upheld together, as meaningful learning accordingly requires diverse perspectives.
“If a campus is not secure, genuine conversation cannot flourish,” Hogue told the Washington Examiner. “And if a campus silences debate, it ceases to fulfill its role as an academic incubator.”
He recounted how, historically, universities were established in medieval Europe as forums for philosophical, theological, and scientific ideas to be tested, challenged, and refined. In the annals of American scholarship, universities have served as the stage for abolition debates, civil rights movements, and revolutionary discussions about advancing democracy, Hogue explained.
Thus, vigorous debate has long been an essential component of education, Hogue said, and as civic educators, schools have strived to nurture students to grow into responsible citizens with faculties for reasoning, not resorting to violence.
That responsibility remains today, Hogue elaborated. “Our mission is to cultivate graduates who will enter society committed to impact the world with grace and truth. Graduates who embrace persuasion, not coercion; ballots, not bullets, words, not weapons.”
The legacy Charlie Kirk leaves behind for young conservatives
Gaines said leftists view Kirk’s assassination as a victory and will only double down on censorship efforts, even through violent means.
“The Left looks at [Sept. 10] as a win,” Gaines said. “They see this as something that they were successful at. They were able to stifle the ultimate debater, the ultimate encourager of civil discourse, through whatever means necessary, whatever it took.”
Gaines believes Kirk was by far the most effective activist she has seen in her lifetime, and that his political opponents knew he could not be beaten in the public forum, so they chose to eliminate him.
“There’s been no one who can mobilize and engage an entire generation in the way that Charlie Kirk has on both sides of the political aisle here,” Gaines said. “And I think the other side, the side that killed him, they recognized that.”
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Gaines, however, expects Kirk’s death to have an opposite effect than his assassin intended, instead inspiring more like-minded conservatives to take up the mantle.
“I think we will see an increase of Charlie Kirk,” said Gaines. “I think they didn’t necessarily think about the consequences of suppression when prematurely making his life, because that’s exactly what this is going to do. It’s going to create more and more people like him.”
Mobbs urged others not to give in to fears by balking at opportunities for political discourse.
“We must have the courage to keep debating,” she said. “We must be willing to come into contact with ideas we may disagree with bitterly, and still insist on the discipline of persuasion over the temptation of violence. The willingness to engage, to argue, and to allow unpopular voices to be heard is how free people resolve conflict without bloodshed.”
CHARLIE KIRK WAS MURDERED FOR WINNING THE WAR OF PUBLIC PERSUASION
Allowing intimidation to dictate who is allowed to speak sets a precedent that only those backed by threats will be heard, Mobbs continued. “That is not free speech, and it is not democracy. We honor Charlie best, and protect our future, not by retreating, but by ensuring that disagreement is handled where it belongs: in the realm of debate, not in the shadow of violence.”
