(Photo courtesy of Trent Nelson) “Charlie Kirk tossing hats to the crowd before he was assassinated at a college event in Utah.”
Correction Notice: Tyler Robinson was erroneously listed as a former college student. While he previously attended UVU, he was currently attending a technical college at the time of the incident.
Makayla Mahoney
Connector Contributor
On Wednesday, Sept. 10, conservative and controversial political commentator Charlie Kirk was assassinated in front of a crowd of 3,000 at Utah Valley University (UVU) in Orem, Utah. He was speaking on campus with his nonprofit organization, Turning Point USA, as part of their “American Comeback Tour,” where he debates college students on political issues.
At 12:23 PM MDT (2:23 PM EDT), Kirk was shot by 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, a former UVU student, with a high-powered bolt-action rifle from an estimated 142 yards away. Kirk was rushed to Timpanogos Regional Hospital in Orem, Utah, where he was pronounced dead at 2:20 PM MDT (4:20 PM EDT) by President Donald Trump on Truth Social. Robinson was urged by his father to turn himself in to the police two days later, after two suspects had been taken into custody and later released.
Kirk co-founded Turning Point USA with his mentor, Bill Montgomery, in 2012 at the age of 18. Their goal was to “identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.” Kirk then began to make himself known in the conservative political sphere, speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention where he backed then-businessman Donald Trump’s campaign.
He continued to utilize online platforms to spread conservatism among younger audiences and rose in popularity. In 2020, Kirk debuted “The Charlie Kirk Show,” and appeared on many other political podcasts. Within recent years, he began clipping moments from his college debates, often going viral on Instagram and TikTok. One recent online stir was Jubilee’s “Can 25 Liberal College Students Outsmart 1 Conservative,” where Charlie Kirk debated students on topics like abortion, trans rights, DEI, affirmative action, and whether college is a scam.
College debates were the foundation of Charlie Kirk’s career as Turning Point USA’s goal was to promote conservative values at high schools and universities. His organization brought him to UVU that Wednesday where he planned to debate their students, sitting under a white tent with the words “Prove Me Wrong.”
Students at UVU had created a petition prior to the event to block Kirk from coming to speak on campus, gaining almost 1,000 signatures. The petition asserted, “Kirk’s presence and the messages he delivers stand in contrast to the values of understanding, acceptance, and progress that many of us hold dear.”
Ultimately, UVU countered with their statement prior to Kirk’s event. “[UVU] upholds First Amendment rights and fosters an environment where ideas — popular or controversial — can be exchanged freely, energetically, and civilly.”
Kirk’s career created a lot of discourse in the political community. Despite having a large support of 12.9 million followers on Instagram, many also hold that his views were extreme and intolerant.
UMass Lowell’s College Democrats’ Co-President Sabine de Laurent released the following statement: “Charlie Kirk will leave no legacy behind other than the division he sowed. Kirk’s rhetoric perpetuated hatred between races and preyed on the inherent differences that we all have. It is telling that he died by the same violence that many in the communities he vilified experience day after day. Our politics is getting increasingly perverted by personas like Kirk who scare us into blaming each other for the bad in our world and are willfully ignorant of the fact that it is our elected officials who fail us every single day, both Democrats and Republicans, not our fellow Americans. Violence only perpetuates more violence; Charlie Kirk’s assassination will not change the number of people latched onto his ideology; it instead creates a martyr who can no longer be challenged in the marketplace of free ideas. Only good leadership can fix bad ideology, so hold politicians accountable and vote.”
Congresswoman Lori Trahan, representing Massachusetts’s 3rd Congressional District, including Lowell, also commented on the assassination: “The attack on Charlie Kirk is reprehensible. In our country, there is no place for political violence – no matter who it targets or where it comes from. We don’t settle political disputes with violence. That’s the promise of our democracy, and it’s one we all have a responsibility to uphold. I am holding Charlie and his family in my thoughts.”
With acts of political violence becoming more frequent in the news, the assassination of Charlie Kirk has sparked greater concerns about the state of partisanship in the United States. While party division has been increasing over recent years, the continual violence has produced greater tension that, especially in today’s world, needs to dissipate for a better united democratic nation. With the unpredictability of daily to weekly news, the aftermath of this incident is yet to come.
