You may have noticed a flutter of phones and audible gasps across the classroom on Wednesday, September 10th. Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot in the neck at a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University.
It was a sunny afternoon in Orem, Utah which houses Utah Valley University — a school that had seen controversy in the lead-up to Kirk’s visit. Despite a petition with 1,000 signatures requesting for Kirk’s event to be cancelled, the university permitted his attendance to affirm the school’s “commitment to free speech, intellectual inquiry, and constructive dialogue.” Utah Valley University was ranked 71/257 in college free speech rankings.
Beneath the Turning Point USA tents, which travel from campus to campus promoting debate, Kirk wore a white shirt with the word “freedom” written across the chest.
Witness testimony describes the tone of the event as “happy and excited” prior to the attack. A student asked a question about transgender school shooters and before Kirk could pick up the microphone, a shooter struck. Graphic videos on social media will show Kirk bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound near his neck which fell limp after impact.
Charlie Kirk passed away soon after.
Charlie Kirk founded Turning Point USA “to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.” Over time, Kirk amassed a network of conservative followers that supported Trump’s 2024 presidential election.
Serving as a model to many conservative youth throughout the country, Kirk led Turning Point USA through outreach efforts in increasing youth voter turnout. Whether you agree with his political ideology or not, increased youth civic engagement better-reflects US citizen voting preferences. This leads to a healthier, better-functioning democracy.
At the age of 18, Kirk opted out of a college education to help start up Turning Point USA. From such a young age, he was able to command attention in an impactful way. The courage, planning, and willingness to face resistance characterizes the mission of Turning Point USA. It took all of the above to step onto a modern university as a conservative student. But it didn’t stop there. Kirk’s movement helped push a broader dialogue about empathy and diversity of thought.
Engaged Americans can advocate for issues they care about using evidence, reasoning, and humility. You don’t need to agree with someone to have a productive conversation—that’s what Turning Point USA wants young people to take away.
Supporters have described Kirk’s rhetoric as inspiring and realistic. Critics have interpreted Kirk’s rhetoric as bigoted or discriminatory. There are few specific details out yet, but some pundits have already begun commenting. MSNBC’s Matthew Dowd:
“And I always go back to… ‘hateful thoughts lead to hateful words,’ which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that’s the environment we’re in…that you can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place and that’s the unfortunate environment we’re in.” Dowd was fired from MSNBC over these remarks soon after.
While hateful words are uncomfortable, violent, hateful actions go beyond what should be tolerated in our political environment and society at large. Schools, especially universities like Utah Valley, are meant to be places where students can engage with new or challenging ideas.
Political violence has no place in America. God forbid such intolerance plagues our great and good University of Virginia.
Before casting judgement on Kirk for his political beliefs, consider the context through which you do it. Kirk was a devoted husband to his loving wife and dedicated father to his beautiful children.
The opinions expressed within this piece represent the views of the author alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Jefferson Independent.
He was an extremely divisive figure.
It is not just that he was a conservative, or even that he was outspoken, provocative. He spread conspiracy theories about Jewish people, he smeared MLK (who, notably, was also assassinated) and black people (do look up his comments about black women) generally – and more recently, spread disgusting falsehoods about the Minnesota shootings, where a democratic lawmaker was killed with her husband and another grievously injured, for self-serving and political purposes.
I will not celebrate his death. It’s classless and what happened was horrifying. I can’t imagine what his family is going through right now. But to lionize him, to present him as some sort of ordinary political activist or worse, some champion of “free speech” while this was a person who set up “watch lists” of professors who expressed or taught things he disagreed with, encouraging his supporters to harass them professionally or looking the other way while they were sent threats.
No, we should not do that. It’s also worth acknowledging that he, and many others like him, on both sides, contributed to this unsettling environment we all find ourselves in.