2 days ago
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The spot where Charlie Kirk was killed is fenced off. The fountain beside it shut down. The American flags nearby hang low above the spot where he fell. Every so often, someone stops to leave flowers or say a prayer. There are far more police officers and security staff than before, and many linger around the venue, as if the campus itself hasn’t taken a full breath since that day.
Back in 2019, Utah Valley University felt big and loud in the best way, a sprawling public campus of nearly 46,000 students and one of the most diverse in the state, with a large share of first-generation students. Then, on 10 September 2025, Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA and one of the country’s most polarizing conservative commentators, was shot on stage during a campus event. The attack sparked national outrage and political blame, adding to a long list of politically violent episodes. Two months later, UVU stands at the center of a national conversation.
In the aftermath of the incident, students who lived through the chaos are trying to make sense of what happened and what it means for their school’s identity. Some feel divided, others feel numb and many want UVU to be remembered for something other than the killing.
For Gage Howe, 19, a first-year music student, UVU had always felt warm and welcoming. “UVU looked like a good place for me. It felt happy, everyone got along,” he said. He had only one class on the day Kirk was killed, a history course that was canceled so students could attend the event. “I stayed home and saw everything on the news,” he said. “At first, I thought it was a joke. I didn’t think it was real until I started getting texts from my buddies saying: ‘Did you hear what just happened?’”
José, 19, a sociology major who asked that his last name not be used because of his family’s immigration status, was closer to the scene, sitting at a nearby cafeteria. “It feels like a fever dream,” he said. “It was two months ago, but the way the whole world was talking about it made it feel like years.”
What freshman Zoey Davidson remembers most is the silence afterward. “Right after it happened, it was hard to come back. It felt uncertain. The campus was really quiet, almost eerie,” said the 21-year-old from Wyoming.
As the news spread, vigils were held across the country and the world. Eulogies praised Kirk’s influence, and many cast him as a cultural martyr. Another group questioned Kirk’s legacy, including prominent Black writers like Ta-Nehisi Coates, who argued that “Kirk reveled in open bigotry”. Others voiced similar concerns and, in some cases, faced backlash or even lost their jobs. Trump blamed the shooting on what he called “the radical left” and signed an executive order declaring the date a National Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk.
For students at UVU, the aftermath wasn’t abstract. They were living inside it.
“It’s divided us a little more,” said Howe. “I keep seeing posts about rallies. I just want this place to be somewhere people are equal, no political stuff, just people.”
Several said they barely knew Charlie Kirk’s work before the shooting, and others felt uneasy about the national push to define him as a unifying figure.
Howe, 19, said Kirk often came across as divisive. “I didn’t listen to much of Charlie Kirk, but yeah, he crossed the line a few times for me,” he said.
José, who grew up in Venezuela and later moved to Utah, described the whole episode as unreal. What stayed with him wasn’t fear, but the waves of attention that flooded the school. “It was something I’d never seen before,” he said. “I wasn’t super affected personally, but seeing reporters and people from everywhere felt weird.”
José told me he saw Kirk as divisive, someone who often “targeted minorities and immigrants”. His family has been on edge since Trump returned to office, he said. They’ve made “plan A, B, C” and watch for ICE the way other families watch for weather alerts. “Kirk was in some way responsible for that,” he said.
The national debate over Kirk’s legacy has also entered UVU’s classrooms. On 21 September, UVU announced the formation of the UVU Memorial Committee, co-chaired by Scott M Smith, chair of the UVU board of trustees, and Amanda Covington, chair of the Utah board of higher education. On 21 October, students led by the Students for a Democratic Society held a protest against the university’s plans for a Kirk memorial, citing what they described as his “divisive rhetoric” and comments they believe were hostile toward “minorities, LGBTQ+ students, and immigrants”, which they believe don’t represent the spirit of the university. (The committee has not responded to questions.)
In a recent live interview with the Washington Post, the UVU president, Dr Astrid Tuminez, responded cautiously when asked about the plans for a Kirk memorial. She urged students and the committee to think carefully about the purpose of memorials, asking: “What do we want to memorialize?” and “Twenty or thirty years from now, is this a memorial everybody can love and be proud of?”
José, 19, doesn’t think the university has any control over the legacy, saying: “I don’t think anyone wants that to be our legacy. People come here to study and do their work. Nobody wants to be tied to that event.”
What he wants people to remember is something quieter and more ordinary. “UVU is more than what happened. It promotes unity, collaboration, hard work and community,” he said. “I want people not to judge it based on that day.”
Zoey, 21, also hopes UVU won’t be defined by the shooting. “I’d rather it be remembered for how people responded,” she said.
She believes the campus found a kind of closeness in the aftermath. “There was a lot of love and unity, and people gathered together as a community,” she said. “That’s what I’d want UVU’s legacy to be.”
