Survey Finds 30% of College Students Say Violence Can Be Acceptable to Stop Campus Speakers, a Year After Charlie Kirk’s Death at UVU

Nearly a year after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was fatally shot during a campus debate at Utah Valley University in Orem, a new national survey finds that 30% of college students still believe violence can be an acceptable way to stop a controversial speaker.

The finding comes from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s (FIRE) latest College Free Speech Rankings, which surveyed 62,997 undergraduates at 262 four-year colleges and universities.

Of the students surveyed, 3% said violence was always acceptable, 12% said it was sometimes acceptable, and 16% said it was rarely acceptable as a means of stopping a speaker from appearing on campus. Seventy percent said violence was never an acceptable response to a speaker they disagreed with.

Kirk was killed on Sept. 10, 2025, while debating students at a Turning Point USA event on UVU’s Orem campus, an incident that has become a reference point for national conversations about campus speech and safety. FIRE’s survey found the assassination left a lasting mark, both positive and negative, on free speech attitudes at UVU specifically.

The 30% figure marks a decline from 2025, when 34% of students said violence was an acceptable protest tactic. Still, this year’s number is up 10 percentage points from four years ago, according to FIRE.

A related measure, whether shouting down a speaker to prevent them from being heard is acceptable, stood at 69% this year, down three points from last year but still up seven points compared with four years ago.

FIRE reacts to the numbers

FIRE Data Analyst Chapin Lenthall-Cleary told Fox News Digital the drop in acceptance of violence is welcome news, but cautioned that the underlying problem remains.

“We’re pleased that the percentage of students who find it acceptable to answer speech with violence has decreased. But so long as students and outside speakers believe that voicing disagreement or sharing controversial views could get them hurt, speech will remain chilled on campuses.”

Lenthall-Cleary said FIRE could not pinpoint exactly why this year’s numbers dipped, but offered a possible explanation tied directly to what happened in Orem.

“It’s possible that students who once believed violence was an acceptable way to stop a campus speech changed their minds after witnessing Charlie Kirk get brutally assassinated for speaking his mind on a campus.”

He also pointed to a longer-term shift in who is most accepting of using violence against speakers.

“Back in the early 2020s, when we started doing the rankings, liberal students were about twice as accepting of violence as conservative students. Since then, there’s been a dramatic rise in acceptance of violence among conservative and moderate students, especially male students. Now, liberal and conservative students are roughly equally accepting of violence. Mercifully, overall support for violence declined slightly this year, but over 30% of students still say it’s at least rarely acceptable to use violence to stop a speaker.”

Where schools rank

FIRE’s report also ranks colleges and universities on overall free speech climate. The top five schools in the 2027 rankings are the University of Chicago, Claremont McKenna College, the Georgia Institute of Technology, Michigan Technological University and Vanderbilt University.