Judicial Watch Emails Reveal UVU Faculty Urged Against Memorializing Charlie Kirk After Assassination

Newly obtained internal records from Utah Valley University reveal that some faculty members urged the school not to memorialize Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and Turning Point USA co-founder who was assassinated on the UVU campus on September 10, 2025. The emails, acquired by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch through an open records request, show a campus divided over how to respond to a killing that shocked the nation and sparked widespread debate about political violence and free speech.

According to the records, which span 133 pages, one faculty member sent an email 11 days after the shooting addressed to then-UVU President Astrid Tuminez, arguing that Kirk “appealed to the worst of us” and that the university should “resist any effort to memorialize him or turn him into an icon.” The email, with the subject line “On Preserving UVU’s Values and Commitment to Students,” claimed Kirk “targeted impressionable youth, feeding on their fears and anxieties.” The instructor’s name was redacted in the documents.

In contrast, another faculty member sent a message less than 24 hours after the murder describing the assassination as a “life-altering tragedy” and praising UVU as a place for “diversity and listening.” That email was warmly received by a university recipient who called it “such a clear, compassionate, and healing message.”

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the emails show that the unity university administrators tried to project was tested by faculty members who, according to one message, couldn’t “understand how people could support or mourn someone” like Kirk.

A Campus and a Nation Wrestle With Political Violence

The killing of Kirk, a 31-year-old Christian evangelist and prominent supporter of President Donald Trump, occurred in front of his wife and children. A suspect, described by authorities as a left-wing individual, was charged in connection with the shooting. The assassination has become a flashpoint in the national conversation about rising political extremism and the safety of conservative speakers on college campuses.

In the aftermath, a survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and College Pulse found that a “notable portion” of college students nationwide reported being less comfortable expressing their political views on campus. The chilling effect was “especially pronounced among conservative students,” the report stated, with conservative students consistently reporting higher levels of unease than their moderate and liberal peers. The survey oversampled UVU students.

The FIRE report suggested that Kirk’s assassination may have caused conservative students to “grow more wary” of aggressive or violent protests to shut down speakers, “perhaps reflecting increased concern about the real-world consequences of political violence.” Liberal students, in contrast, “showed no similar pullback.”

Separately, a Liberal Currents poll conducted with the Center for Strategic Politics found that about one in three Democrats said they would like to see Trump assassinated while speaking at a rally, and more than half would welcome the president dying in his sleep while in office. The poll was conducted September 3 and September 8-10.

Faculty Reactions Spark Outrage and Debate

Other emails obtained by Judicial Watch show a faculty member in November 2025 writing that they had “a hard time dealing with the aftermath of the shooting” because they couldn’t “understand how people could support or mourn someone who was so divisive and spewed such vituperation in his ‘debates.’” The instructor added, “I regret that he was invited to UVU at all, and wish you had rethought the decision to allow him a forum on our campus.”

The records also indicate that faculty and staff at several universities made callous remarks online about Kirk’s murder, with some suggesting he deserved it for his views on issues like gender identity and DEI. Some who posted such remarks lost their university positions, though many were later reinstated and received settlements in lawsuits over due process and speech rights.

The release of the UVU emails has fueled conservative criticism of higher education, with some arguing that it demonstrates a broader trend of left-wing intolerance on campus. Jonathan Small, president of the Oklahoma Council on Public Affairs, wrote in a piece titled “Higher Education Has An Extremist Problem” that a “toxic brew of Marxist philosophy and identity politics” has become ever-more extreme.

UVU has not issued a public statement on the emails. Judicial Watch said it obtained the records as part of its ongoing efforts to expose what it calls ideological bias in academia.

Source: thefederalist.com — https://thefederalist.com/2026/09/29/higher-ed-is-mass-producing-violent-leftists-like-the-ones-who-celebrated-charlie-kirks-murder/