Charlie Kirk walked onto a college campus to practice the most important American civic habit: open inquiry and argument in pursuit of truth.
He left that stage with a bullet wound, dying hours later in what was undeniably a public execution by a political enemy.
Kirk’s murder is the horrific endpoint of a progressive culture that treats conservative viewpoints as not merely wrong but blasphemous — and their speakers as unworthy of safety.
Kirk’s killing also reveals in the most violent way the depths of intolerance and ideological conformity festering in our colleges.
Universities have enforced the idea that questioning progressive orthodoxy is tantamount to “hate speech.”
It may sound like semantics, but this rhetorical sleight of hand has consequences that have evidently turned violent, even deadly.
It didn’t matter Kirk built a movement by fostering robust, if at times contentious, dialogue on fundamental moral issues with adversaries on college campuses.
For years, the left has used name-calling and unfounded accusations of hate speech to shut down legitimate debate and demonize opponents, feeding into a “cancel culture” that’s escalated political tensions at universities and beyond.
At the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, we, like Charlie Kirk, believe robust speech norms form citizens who can argue, lose, learn and still live peaceably together.
Our students have experienced firsthand what campus violence looks like when these norms erode.
In fact, several of our Collegiate Network reporters from John Adams College attended the Turning Point USA event where Kirk was shot and published a courageous piece in their campus paper reporting the details.
Yet this is not the first time our students have witnessed violence.
ISI brought The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles and libertarian Brad Polumbo to the University of Pittsburgh in April 2023 to debate whether transgenderism should be legally regulated — and violent protesters ignited and dropped two homemade incendiary smoke devices in and around a line of people waiting to enter the building for the event.
Several officers were injured, and two people were convicted.
But our University of Pittsburgh students weren’t intimidated.
Two years after the incident, they brought Knowles back as a message to the campus community: Attempts to silence speech with violence won’t work on them.
ISI supports conservative students at hundreds of colleges, enabling them to build chapters and campus papers that model ordered liberty, without which a free society cannot stand.
Like Kirk, they’re proud heirs of Western civilization and seekers of truth.
But year after year, surveys show growing tolerance for aggressive tactics to stop “controversial” talks and a consistent bias against right-leaning speakers.
In the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s latest student survey, released just days ago, support for using violence to stop a campus speech has climbed to roughly one-third, while opposition to “shouting down” speakers has eroded.
Students also show lower tolerance for conservative speakers than for progressive ones.
That is a combustible environment, even before you add a high-profile figure like Kirk.
Political violence’s aim is to scare citizens into silence.
Charlie Kirk was influential because he never backed down despite countless threats and protests over the years, and he continued giving his opponents an opportunity to debate.
Conservatives, and students especially, should not recede into obscurity after Kirk’s tragic death, as frightening a reflection of our social health as it might be.
Lawful speech and the right to hear it do not vanish because a topic is contentious, and students have recourse through groups like ISI to ensure conservative perspectives are heard in a secure environment.
The answer to threats is solidarity and sunlight.
Students, including those we have collaborated with at TPUSA, can co-sponsor with groups like ISI to organize debate societies, civil-liberties groups and allied faculty across disciplines.
They should work with security to ensure proper vetting procedures.
Campus administration must communicate that violence and shout-downs will not decide which ideas are heard.
Students should also document everything so officials address any misconduct through proper channels.
Kirk’s “Prove Me Wrong” format invited hostile questions, and although he attracted many who disagreed with him, he created a space where admitting you’re wrong and learning something new was a sign of growth.
Charlie Kirk’s greatest charism was his ability to reach people in all walks of life, at all stages of life, from Gen Z to Gen X and beyond.
He was a generational talent who understood the only way to convince someone of something is by first addressing the person with respect and dignity while being firmly rooted in the truth.
Progressive intolerance sought to silence Charlie Kirk, but the most fitting tribute to his legacy is to expose the ideology’s falsehoods, reject its violence and rededicate ourselves to the ordered liberty it despises.
John A. Burtka IV is the president and CEO of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Marlo Slayback is the executive director of ISI’s Collegiate Network journalism program.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
