\n<\/p>\n
With national attention already focused on campus free speech, the assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University has intensified a fractious moment for higher education. Voices on the right have blamed colleges for Kirk\u2019s death, calling them \u201cindoctrination camps\u201d and comparing them to \u201cmadrassas that radicalize jihadis.\u201d <\/p>\n
Though the suspect is not a student, Kirk\u2019s killing has intersected with concerns that students are increasingly unable or unwilling to engage with dissenting views. Critics have cited the most recent FIRE College Free Speech Rankings survey, which shows that one in three students thinks it\u2019s acceptable to use violence to stop a speaker. <\/p>\n
Colleges did not cause Kirk\u2019s death, but leaders cannot ignore the finding that a third of students support using violence against a speaker. Though most students will never resort to violence,\u00a0the possibility forces colleges to reassess campus security.\u00a0UVU\u2019s police chief admitted\u00a0more than half his force of 15\u00a0officers\u00a0wasn\u2019t able to secure the crowd of 3,000 people at the Kirk event. Security experts noted that stopping a shooting from the top of a building hundreds of\u00a0feet away requires\u00a0Secret Service\u2013style sweeps. The incident raises questions about bringing outside speakers to campuses. With so many budget problems in higher ed, who will cover the costs of keeping them safe?<\/p>\n
Yet on the ground at UVU, life on campus looked far different from critics\u2019 portrayals. In the hours after the shooting, the student newspaper, The UVU Review<\/em>, reported that professors reached out to students to offer resources and reprieves from coursework. Students called everyone in their phone to tell them they were safe. Strangers hugged each other and students offered a ride home to anyone who needed it. They put aside their differences to grieve together. \u201cIt feels like life stopped for us,\u201d said one student. \u201cBut it kept going for everyone else. I\u2019m ready for life to start again, no matter how changed it\u2019ll be.\u201d <\/p>\n Given Kirk\u2019s prominence, students across the country will feel like this incident has changed their lives, too. With more than 850 campus chapters, Turning Point USA is an organization where conservative students have found community. And even for students who disagreed with Kirk he inspired them to engage with political issues and debate their ideas. <\/p>\n But the reactions to Kirk\u2019s death reveal that the ideological fissures on campus have only deepened. At least 15 faculty and staff members have been fired for appearing to condone the shooting on social media, many after online campaigns called for their dismissal. Meanwhile, at a candlelit vigil at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill\u2014a campus that has faced its own tragedy\u2014student Walt Wilson told The Daily Tarheel<\/em> he was mourning Kirk even though he disagreed with him. \u201cGetting killed over debate and fostering free speech, especially in a place like a university where that is supposed to prosper, is a real tragedy and shows an issue of communication and reconciliation,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Free speech survives only if protected in practice. This moment will test higher education\u2019s resolve: Will political pressure drive colleges to retreat, or will they recommit to free expression as a path through turmoil?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With national attention already focused on campus free speech, the assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University has intensified a fractious moment for higher education. Voices on the right have blamed colleges for Kirk\u2019s death, calling them \u201cindoctrination camps\u201d and comparing them to \u201cmadrassas that radicalize jihadis.\u201d Though the suspect is not a student,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[4320,7176,376,533,12585,1053,76],"class_list":{"0":"post-22138","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-campus","9":"tag-charlie","10":"tag-death","11":"tag-free","12":"tag-kirks","13":"tag-speech","14":"tag-test"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}