Utah Valley Students Demand School Reject Charlie Kirk Memorial on Anniversary of His Murder

A year ago a gunman shot Charlie Kirk dead in front of his own students.

On Thursday Utah Valley University reopened its doors to honor him.

More than 600 students signed on to stop it from happening.

The Same Courtyard Where Kirk Was Killed Became a Protest Site

Turning Point USA built the "Freedom Built to Last" memorial for September 10, exactly one year after Kirk was shot at a campus event.

The livestreamed program at the UCCU Center featured Glenn Beck, Frank Turek, and TPUSA officials, roughly a five-minute walk from where Kirk fell.

UVU closed its campus for the day, calling it time for healing, service, and connection.

A campus group called Students for a Democratic Society decided healing meant making sure nobody honored the man who bled out on their quad.

Their open letter gathered more than 600 signatures, and not one of them belonged to someone offering an alternative way to remember Kirk.

The letter branded Turning Point USA "openly racist and antagonistic" and accused the university of embracing "chauvinistic and divisive ideas" for the crime of letting Kirk's own organization mourn him on the spot where he died.

This Is Not the First Time UVU Students Fought the Memorial

This was the second organized push against honoring Kirk on that campus.

Back in October, the same student group rallied against a permanent Kirk statue, standing about 200 feet from where he was killed.

Organizer Collin Grannis said the group did not want Kirk's likeness on campus and did not want outsiders showing up to see it either, as if a public university were his group's private property.

Another student floated that a monument would only get vandalized, treating the threat of a future crime as an argument against the memorial rather than against the vandals.

A competing petition backing a permanent memorial still cleared 21,000 signatures, more than thirty times the protest letter's count, for whatever comfort that offers.

Legal scholar Jonathan Turley called the whole campaign "menacing and mendacious," and said Kirk's murder was being repurposed to justify silencing the people who wanted to remember him.

Georgetown Shows This Is a Pattern, Not an Accident

UVU is not an isolated case.

Weeks after Kirk's assassination, flyers turned up at Georgetown University from a group calling itself the John Brown Club, celebrating his death with the phrase "Hey Fascist Catch."

That phrase matched wording found engraved on a shell casing tied to the man charged with killing Kirk.

Georgetown pulled the flyers down within a day and reported the matter to the FBI.

A year later, students at a different school on the other side of the country are running the same play, treating the act of memorializing a murdered man as the real provocation.

UVU Can't Close Campus for Healing and Bankroll the Backlash

Here's what actually fires people up about this: colleges spend every August promising parents their campuses are safe, then spend every September clearing a courtyard so students can organize against honoring the man who was shot dead in it.

Turning Point USA didn't ask this student group's permission to bring Kirk to UVU in 2025, and it sure doesn't need it a year later.

The university gets to have it both ways, closing campus for "a day of healing" while handing a bullhorn to the fraction of its own students who think the real wound here is a memorial, not a murder.

That's the through line running from Provo to Georgetown: they can't put Charlie Kirk in the ground fast enough, but a plaque with his name on it is where they draw the line.

Sources:

• Alexander Hall, "Democratic student group to protest Charlie Kirk memorial at campus where he was killed," Fox News, September 9, 2026.
• Jonathan Turley, "We Don't Want His Likeness on Campus: Protesters Move to Block Kirk Memorial at UVU," JonathanTurley.org, October 25, 2025.
• Legal Insurrection, "Turning Point USA Announces Charlie Kirk Memorial on Campus Where He Was Murdered," Legal Insurrection, August 2026.
• Deseret News, "Burgess Owens Leads Moment of Silence for Charlie Kirk," Deseret News, September 3, 2026.
• Jasmine Baehr, "Georgetown Acts Quickly After Disturbing Flyers Reemerge on Campus Mocking Charlie Kirk," Fox News, September 25, 2025.