New Actor: FIRE links Kirk assassination to university speech policies
A national free speech report released Wednesday ties Charlie Kirk’s 2025 assassination to a chill on campus speech. More than half of undergraduates surveyed said the shooting is hard to discuss openly. At Utah Valley University in Orem, where the killing occurred, 62% said so, the highest share among 61 campuses sampled.
The rankings docked at least 10 schools for disciplining comments about the assassination and gave them failing grades. Examples include the University of Washington opening an investigation into a research scientist’s posts about Kirk on X. Texas State pressured a student who mocked his death at a vigil, and the University of Tennessee fired an anthropology professor who posted that the world was better off without him.
In all, 121 schools received an F, or 46%, and the average score was 61.36 out of 100, a D minus on the report’s scale. Only 24 campuses earned a C or better. The University of Chicago ranked highest with a B minus, followed by Claremont McKenna College and Georgia Tech, while New York University ranked last.
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