Editor’s Note: The following is an article originally published by the National Association of Scholars on September 10, 2025. It is crossposted here with permission.
We are appalled at the murder of Charlie Kirk. He was a decent man, a father and husband, a patriot, a Christian, and a force to be reckoned with in opposing the radical left on campus. That reckoning came today when someone at a rally at Utah Valley University shot him in the neck.
I met him years ago when he was meditating on the creation of Turning Point USA, and was seeking counsel from organizations that were already established in the work of preserving liberal education against the efforts of left-wing activists to subvert higher education. Charlie’s idea was to turn some of the techniques of leftist organizing against the left. That was a lane that was wide open, at least since the days that the former Marxists Peter Collier and David Horowitz published their flamboyant newspaper, Heterodoxy. Charlie’s ambitions, however, went beyond satirizing the left. He saw the possibility of building a nationwide movement of campus activists on the right.
We at the National Association of Scholars kept our distance, though sometimes with grudging admiration for Charlie’s success in reviving the spirit of students who were subject to cancellation campaigns and who seldom saw any support for their free speech from campus authorities. Turning Point USA volunteers often saw their literature trashed and their tables overturned. They were occasionally assaulted by leftist bullies. Charlie stood up for those volunteers, and they stood up for him.
We have no details yet of who shot him or why. Charlie had become friends with President Trump, which no doubt increased his value as a target of leftist violence. In April 2017, the comedian Kathy Griffin attempted to earn applause by posing with a prop made to look like Trump’s severed head. Two months later, a disgruntled Democrat, James T. Hodgkinson, opened fire on Republican members of Congress and their staff during a baseball practice in Alexandria, Virginia, gravely injuring U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. Since then, the left’s rhetoric of violence has only intensified and materialized into two attempted assassinations. President Trump is now protected by the Secret Service, or at least better protected than he was last year. Someone like Charlie Kirk had no such cover. He may have been the assassin’s stand-in for the President.
Charlie certainly is a martyr for all of us who believe that America has indulged far too much with people who have delusions of grandeur and a willingness to deploy violence to score political points. This is a cultural affinity that cannot be fixed by law, though proper law enforcement would help. What we really need is what Charlie fought for: education that restores American faith and values. He truly gave his life for that cause.
Image: Charlie Kirk by Gage Skidmore on Wikimedia Commons
And Jonathan, I was proven right — the only thing I was wrong on is where he got the full-boat scholarship to, it actually was Utah State. USU instead of UVU.
He was the pride of his family — 4.0 high school GPA, academic scholarship to study engineering. He lasts a semester and winds up with a tranny boyfriend/girlfriend and association with furries, i.e. anthropomorphic animal characters.
He went to a college 5 hours from home and lasted just one semester — something happened — I think we need to know what.
Is tranny culture inherently violent or is it merely a coincidence — again, I think we need to know that.
And here we have a kid who had the interest and ability to become an engineer who instead winds up training to be an electrician. Not that there isn’t good money in that, but there is better in being an electrical engineer.
So what caused this, and I don’t want to hear bullbleep about “transphobia.”
Elsewhere, you seemed to blame his semester in college for his going into assassin-mode years later. My reaction was, you are insane!
Elsewhere among these posts, I said:
“I will be curious to understand what was going on in the head of that son of cop, Mormon raised, normal-looking 22 year old to did what he did.”
I am still wondering. I do think this was one very weird person. Without knowing anything about them, I feel bad for their family.
I look at the whole scene with horror. We are filled with murderous individuals. On both left and right. Yup, look them up, there are tallies. Yeah, I no longer have had any allegiance to either side, for years.
Charlie Kirk’s website “Professor Watchlist” or whatever it is called, caused quite a lot of angst among professors who were on the receiving end. Not murder, I trust, but threats, yes. I recall that when this started, that was when I paid no further attention to Charlie Kirk. To be sure, I was horrified when I read about him on the web while at an academic-scientific meeting last week.
The AAUP-which has been a consistent force for defending and inciting leftwing violence across the nation, is conspicuously quiet in condemning, or evening acknowledging Mr. Kirk’s unjustifiable murder.
This should come as no surprise. The AAUP, which lies and falsely claims itself to be the bastion of academic “freedom” and “free speech,” has put out all kinds of fatwas against non-leftists speakers, faculty, students, and even citizenry. Indeed, the AAUP put out a “field guide,” similar in form to the one used by the Focus on the Family leftwing shooter, to get campus student and other paid activists to attack, suppress, intimidate, and threaten TPUSA members in particular on college campus. Recent attacks at UC Davis, UIUC, U Nebraska, and others, were all carried out by campus leftists, backed and supported by AAUP and branch AAUP statements.
Of course when one looks at the head, like a fish, it should come as no surprise to see the source of the rot. Todd Wolfsan has supported calls for assassination of the President, demanded harm be done to campus Jews and even state legislators who have fought to end the paid NGO-financed campus domestic leftwing terrorists. He and the AAUP have supported kidnappers at Columbia, arsonists at UCLA, and assaults at Midburry. Tariq Khan, and antifa and 9-11 conspiracy theorist attacked two TPSUSA students at the university of Illinois, which the AAUP lauded and applauded. It has glorified violent, psychopaths like Melissa Click, Eric Clanton, Dana Cloud, and unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers.
The AAUP has the blood of Mr. Kirk on their hands, and a claim to most, if not all the campus violence for the last two decades.
First, it is now the AAUP-AFT — they have merged with the American Federation of Teachers, a union.
But I think that the AAUP-AFT and others are going to pay a price — President Trump is talking about taking action against those who have encouraged this sort of thing, and I think you will see things similar to what Clinton did after the Oklahoma City Bombing.
Charlie’s great virtue was his willingness to debate difficult issues with anybody in a civil way. He was brilliant at it. This assassination is a new low in American history. It shows that rational discussion is indeed anathema to many.
Charlie great virtue was his willingness to debate difficult issues with anybody in a civil way. He was brilliant at it. This assassination is a new low in American history. It show that rational discussion is indeed anathema to many whp disgraee with him.
I find it troubling that he was assassinated in the midst of answering a question about guns.
The authorities have a LOT of work to do over the next 48-72 hours, and while several very interesting facts have already come out, I’m not going to speculate beyond saying I don’t believe in coincidences, not when dealing with the radical left.
Maybe wait until the killer is apprehended and we find out something about him?
Well he has, and we have — and I am not surprised by anything I have seen.
Maybe tranny, maybe not, he’s one of Obama’s lost children. Started 1st grade with Obama’s election, 11th grade with Trump — and then to UVU where I doubt his cop father was liked much. Less with BLM and Brandon.
I’m not convinced he acted alone.