Charlie Kirk died for free speech: a year later, free speech Is losing

I spent three sleepless nights last September watching leftists celebrate a man’s murder. I recorded it, posted it, and tried to show people what was actually happening in real time. My videos exposing the leftists celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death were given violations and taken down, while theirs stayed up. A year later, the audio of Kirk’s assassination is a trending sound on TikTok, set to makeup transitions and obnoxious hair dye reveals.

Sit with that sickness for a second– these social media platforms found time to censor a public school teacher documenting hate, but they allow the audio of a dead man’s last seconds being used as a punchline.

Charlie Kirk was assassinated doing what he built his entire platform on: showing up on college campuses and peacefully debating those who disagreed with him. On that day, free speech did not just come under attack by removing a post on social media; it was violently attacked at the very place free speech is supposed to be most welcome, a university campus full of students.

A year later, data on free speech shows that it has not gotten any better. A bullet was put through free speech, literally, and I wish I did not have to say literally.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression surveyed nearly 63,000 students at 262 colleges this September, one year out from Kirk’s death. Thirty percent said using violence to stop campus speech is acceptable, at least in rare cases. One in three said a professor should be fired for posting “MAGA.” Forty-two percent of students said a professor should be fired for posting, “Our colleges and universities are progressive indoctrination centers.” Sixty-nine percent said shouting down a speaker is fine. This is not a fringe group giving us these alarming statistics, but a third of a generation.

Just this week, a UC Irvine and Chapman lecturer named Matthew Goldman commented under Harvard Republicans’ Instagram post announcing a campus visit from independent journalist Nick Shirley, the same young reporter whose Minnesota daycare fraud investigation prompted a federal payment freeze and got him called a one-man DOGE. Goldman wrote that someone could do “the funniest thing” to Shirley “just before the Kirkiversary.” So far, there is no update on whether this college lecturer received any consequences for implying that a man who is only a couple of years older than the students at UC Irvine should be assassinated like Charlie.

But why should he get fired when people who celebrated Kirk’s murder are getting their jobs back? Barri Brennan, a Fresno State lecturer, recorded saying “it’s too bad he’s not dead” the day Kirk was shot, and was back in her classroom by January. Ball State’s Suzanne Swierc, fired for her own posts about Kirk, settled with the university for $225,000. Inside Higher Ed has tracked thirty-five faculty and staff members disciplined for celebrating his death. At least twelve are suing to get reinstated, and some already have.

Turning Point USA launched the Professor Watchlist back in 2016. It was a searchable database, professors listed by name, photo, and school, tagged by category, “racial ideology,” “LGBTQ,” “diversity, equity and inclusion,” and a short write-up of whatever statement or lesson got them added. The stated mission was simple: expose professors who discriminate against conservative students and/or lean far-left so parents and students know what they are walking into.

To be fair, some professors on it describe real harassment, even death threats, after their names went up. I believe them. I am not interested in pretending that is fine, and it should never be fine no matter which side of the aisle someone is on. But it is a bitter irony that the man who built a website for transparency, simply stating what professors were teaching in their own classrooms, was the one who ended up killed for his views.

Unfortunately, I cannot direct you to the Professor Watchlist now. It is gone. Not moved or rebranded, but gone, sometime around March, with no explanation from Turning Point USA to anyone, including a DC news outlet that asked directly and never got an answer. I don’t know why, and I won’t guess the motives of the TPUSA leadership, as there may be circumstances I’m not aware of. I will say, however, that whatever the reason the watchlist disappeared- legal pressure, a rebrand, a quiet decision to avoid the fight, it does seem to send the opposite message from the one he spent his life sending.

`What would be fitting is if the list was expanded to include all the professors, teachers, and public employees who celebrated his death.

The day after Kirk was shot, a small café in my own region of Florida posted an unedited photo of him at the exact moment he was shot on their business Instagram, paired with a quote of his about the Second Amendment, mocking his death. I called it out, and of course, the business owner played victim when the post went viral. I drove by the cafe the other day, and the business was alive and well. I don’t doubt that if an official business social media page had mocked the natural death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg or anyone on the left who has died, there would be padlocks on the doors to this day.

Charlie built his whole career on the idea that free speech works, that two people with opposing views can talk it out without turning violent. He died proving that true free speech still terrifies people and, in Charlie’s case, whole groups. They would rather celebrate the violent silence of a voice than allow free speech to continue. A year later, professors are joking about doing it again, students think firing someone over a hat is reasonable, and the people who cheered his death are walking back into classrooms as if nothing happened.

Charlie was right about one thing above everything else. If you cannot debate an idea, the only thing left is to silence the person saying it. We just spent a year watching exactly who is still willing to do that.