It’s understandable that witnessing a political activist’s assassination could significantly shake your sense of safety.
That seems to have been the case for many students at Utah Valley University when their college campus became the site of Charlie Kirk’s murder in September.
A recent survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and College Pulse found that college students — especially UVU students — are apprehensive about public events. Students also said they are worried about sharing their opinions in class and were more likely to oppose aggressive tactics used by protesters to block speech.
The survey was conducted between Oct. 3-31 among 2,028 undergraduates at colleges nationwide, and includes an oversample of 204 UVU students, according to FIRE and College Pulse. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
UVU students were more likely than other students to say they worry about attending a public event on campus or about sharing their political views in discussions with peers or in class.
“Students want to feel safe, and the killing of Charlie Kirk naturally eroded their sense of safety,” FIRE Chief Research Adviser Sean Stevens said, per the press release.
When asked if they felt the country was moving in the right or wrong direction in terms of people’s ability to openly share their opinions, 84% of UVU students said it was headed in the wrong direction compared to 73% of other students.
Moreover, UVU students were less accepting of protesters preventing speech by interrupting speakers, blocking students from attending or using violence to prevent a campus speech from taking place.
Nationally, 35% of students say it’s sometimes or always ok to shout down a speaker on campus, while 20% say the same about blocking students from attending a speech. When asked about using violence to stop a campus speech, 12% say it’s sometimes or always acceptable.
Nine of 10 students said they believe “words can be violence,” the FIRE survey shows.
“When people start thinking that words can be violence, violence becomes an acceptable response to words,” Stevens said. “Even after the murder of Charlie Kirk at a speaking event, college students think that someone’s words can be a threat. This is antithetical to a free and open society, where words are the best alternative to political violence.”
The ‘new normal’
UVU President Astrid Tuminez told the Deseret News that it’s only natural for a tragedy like this to have “chilling” effects.
Post Sept. 10, Tuminez said the university refers to it as the “new normal.”
“I think the processing of what happened and its implications takes time, but just bringing the campus back was an amazing, complex, difficult, and worthwhile undertaking,” she said.
Tuminez explained that the campus was shut down for a few days, and then, when students returned, “care stations” were placed all across campus.
On the day Kirk was assassinated, national recognition of UVU transformed overnight.
Isaac Hanson was in a lab on Sept. 10 when a girl ran into his classroom in hysterics, screaming that someone had just been shot.
“She didn’t say who had been shot or how many people. And so in my mind, I thought that someone was running around shooting people all over campus, and it was kind of a mass shooting occurrence,” he told the Deseret News.
After a few minutes, the girl said it was Kirk who was shot, “and then all of the dots kind of connected,” Hanson said. “This wasn’t a mass shooting, but obviously a targeted shooting on Charlie Kirk, and so, in my mind, I felt some relief, but I was also just in total shock, because, you read about all these stories in the news of these things happening at other universities or in other states, but it doesn’t really hit you until it’s 200 yards away from you.”
About 10 minutes into hiding under their desks, the police came around evacuating classrooms. Hanson said he rushed to his car, and that’s where he saw the video of Kirk being shot.
“At that moment, I kind of just broke down, because no one should ever see someone get shot on social media or in the news ... the brain just is not programmed to see that happen. And so when I saw those videos, that’s when I really went in shock and kind of lost it emotionally.”
Returning to campus that first day was “eerie,” he said, stressing that he couldn’t imagine what it was like for those who witnessed it with their own eyes.
“At this point, it definitely is in the back of everyone’s mind as to what happened,” he added. “So it definitely makes it hard going to campus. But for me, I realized that even though it was a difficult situation, I still have to live my life. I still have to be responsible for my education.”
It was Tuminez’s priority to return the students and staff to their “educational and professional home,” despite news outlets frequenting campus and Kirk memorials scattered across the college.
“It evokes certain feelings and memories, all of which have to be processed and given meaning,” she said. “And the fact that we did it as a collective, I think that’s really important that we really tried our best so that nobody felt like they were in one corner, in the dark, all alone, processing this.”
Creating civility on campus
Conservative students surveyed by FIRE and College Pulse reported higher levels of concern than their liberal counterparts across every question related to feeling safe to express themselves on campus.
Tuminez said that it’s never been brought to her attention by a student that they felt uncomfortable vocalizing their opinions. Still, she acknowledged that it’s a large student body, and that interactions are more likely to occur in a classroom setting.
“I know that the moderate and conservative students have a higher rate of feeling like their speech is chilled, and that’s really definitely worth a conversation on campus, and I hope we can do that,” she said.
Bringing voices to campus “who are modeling courage and respect, not just tolerance” with the college’s new civic dialogue program is one way she is hoping to resolve those concerns.
The FIRE report says that while UVU students feel less comfortable expressing themselves or attending political events than other undergraduate students, they also “show increased tolerance and report more relative trust in institutional protections for free speech” compared to their peers.
“This campus has modeled a way of talking and behaving. And we are not perfect. We have problems,” Tuminez said. “But as far as community goes and wanting to work things through, I think it’s quite strong at UVU.”