The one-year mark of Charlie Kirk’s assassination is one month away, and the university where he was killed reportedly wants no part of honoring him.
Turning Point USA had planned to hold a commemorative service at Utah Valley University on the exact ground where Kirk was shot and killed.
And now, according to a new report, UVU quietly backed out and left the organization hunting for a new location at the last minute.
UVU Pulls the Plug on Joint Memorial
Utah Valley University reportedly withdrew from plans to host a joint memorial service honoring Kirk on the one-year anniversary of his assassination. The event was set for September 10, 2026, and would have allowed Turning Point USA to hold a commemorative service on the same ground where Kirk was killed. According to a source with knowledge of the plans, UVU suddenly reversed course and began stonewalling communications that had been taking place between the university and TPUSA’s national leadership.
The source claims Turning Point USA is seeking a new memorial location on short notice and is frustrated with the public university’s reported sudden withdrawal. UVU, Turning Point USA, and Republican Utah state Senator Dan McCay did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kirk was assassinated on September 10, 2025, while addressing an audience on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The outdoor event was the first stop of the season for the American Comeback Tour, a speaking and debate series planned by Turning Point USA.
So what exactly did UVU offer instead of a joint memorial service with the organization Kirk founded?
An email UVU sent to students and employees stated, “Healing continues in different ways for each member of our university community as we approach September 10, the one-year anniversary of the tragic events surrounding Charlie Kirk’s death.” The email added that “to provide time and space for reflection, service, and connection, UVU will close operations” on September 10, and invited the campus community to an annual Day of Caring volunteer event.
Critics have pointed out that the administration’s email to students characterized the anniversary as commemorating “the tragic events surrounding the death of Charlie Kirk” rather than the assassination itself. That’s a notable choice of words for a university that, at least publicly, has said it wants to honor Kirk’s memory.
And it fits a pattern that is getting harder to ignore.
A University With a Track Record of Getting This Wrong
Critics have noted that the university has been unwilling to honor Kirk’s legacy in the past, including with a “Vigil for Unity” that drew complaints and the controversial choice of Sharon McMahon, a Kirk critic, to speak at the 2026 commencement.
In March, UVU announced McMahon as its 2026 commencement speaker. McMahon had notably criticized Kirk in an Instagram post captioned “Charlie Kirk, In His Own Words” just days after his assassination. The now-deleted post featured an image reading, “To many Americans — especially if you are black, LGBTQ, or Muslim — Charlie Kirk was not a person who simply engaged in good faith debates on college campuses.” McMahon was subsequently removed as the commencement speaker by the university, which cited security concerns.
But here is the part that does not get enough attention: UVU did not initially pull McMahon because of her anti-Kirk posts. They pulled her because of security concerns, and only after significant public backlash.
The university had sent the formal invitation to McMahon after earlier correspondence in which officials thanked her for her “words of support for UVU in the days following the Sept. 10 tragedy on campus.” In other words, UVU reached out to McMahon specifically because of what she said after Kirk was killed, not in spite of it.
The College Republicans at Utah Valley University said they stood “firm in our opposition to the university’s choice to platform Sharon McMahon as a commencement speaker,” noting that “students across the country are still grappling with the tragic loss of Charlie Kirk” and calling it “an insult to deliberately select a speaker who mocked the loss of a political figure assassinated on our beloved campus.”
McMahon’s spokesperson told The Salt Lake Tribune that “Sharon unequivocally condemned the murder of Charlie Kirk, repeatedly and publicly calling his death a tragedy and stressing that public debate must never be met with violence.” But the Instagram post she published in the days after the killing told a different story to a lot of people on campus, and the university knew that when they sent her the invitation anyway.
UVU had also announced it would form a committee tasked with creating a permanent memorial in Kirk’s honor. The UVU Memorial Committee was to be co-chaired by Scott M Smith, UVU Board of Trustees chair and Qualtrics co-founder, and Amanda Covington, Utah Board of Higher Education chair.
And yet here the university sits, one month out from the one-year anniversary, reportedly refusing to co-host a memorial on the very ground where Kirk was killed.
What This Keeps Telling Conservatives About Higher Education
None of this happens in a vacuum. The pattern at UVU mirrors what conservatives have watched play out at universities across the country for years: a campus administration that talks about healing and community while finding every available excuse to avoid actually honoring a conservative figure who was murdered on its own property.
UVU is a public university. It operates on taxpayer dollars. And its leadership has now, by multiple accounts, invited a Kirk critic to speak at commencement, characterized the anniversary of his assassination in language that avoids the word “assassination,” and reportedly pulled out of a joint memorial event with the organization he founded.
That is not a coincidence. That is a posture.
Kirk’s memorial service, held in Arizona in the days after the assassination, was attended by President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Elon Musk, among others. More than 100,000 people showed up. The country mourned. And the university where he was killed has spent the months since then doing everything but making conservatives feel welcome to grieve on that campus.
The left spent years insisting that conservative speakers created dangerous, hostile environments on college campuses. Charlie Kirk spent years proving them wrong by showing up anyway, talking to students, and making the argument that free exchange of ideas was worth defending. He was killed doing exactly that.
The least UVU could do is let the people who loved him hold a memorial service where he fell.
But apparently, that is too much to ask.
Sources: The Daily Caller, The Cougar Chronicle, KUTV, ABC4 Utah, Deseret News, Wikipedia (Assassination of Charlie Kirk)
