The organization founded by Charlie Kirk is returning to the Utah campus where the conservative commentator was killed to hold a memorial on the first anniversary of his death.
Utah Valley University has also decided to shut down its public campus in Orem that day — Thursday, Sept. 10 — to “provide time and space time for reflection” for students, staff and faculty to use in the way that works best for them. No classes will be held, according to a message to the community. Some students have pushed back on the closure and the administration’s decision to “hand over our campus” to Turning Point USA for the Kirk memorial event.
A leading House Democrat on Tuesday called for an investigation into new whistleblower allegations that the Trump administration forced universities it deemed politically incorrect into settling antisemitism cases despite flimsy or nonexistent evidence.
In retrospect, it is no coincidence that wokeness blossomed at prestigious American colleges at the very moment when those schools were facing rising discontent over student debt and tuition costs. For the academic aristocracy, touting fealty to Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, trans rights, and other progressive movements served as a convenient distraction from the intractable economic and social issues that the colleges themselves were perpetuating.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon last week summoned college and university leaders to publicly declare their commitment to rebuild trust in higher education. But the path forward is murky, as leaders wrestle over whether to respond and how to walk the fine line between compliance and standing their ground.
Universities don’t have to choose between protecting Jewish students and championing freedom of speech. In fact, federal law requires them to do both. Yet when my alma mater, Brown University, resolved a federal civil rights investigation in July 2025, the line between protected speech and unprotected conduct was unnecessarily blurred.