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The assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University has sparked fresh conversations about the security of speakers on campuses and what can be done to improve it as conservatives vow the incident will not scare them from universities.
Both campus and Kirk’s private security were present at Wednesday’s debate event, but experts say completely securing an outdoor venue like the one he used is an impossible task that only is typically attempted by the U.S. Secret Service.
After one shot from 150 yards away was fired to kill Kirk, experts say there will likely be discussions about speakers inside or upping security costs, but not without concerns the solutions could violate the First Amendment.
“It’s very difficult to lock down, from a security standpoint, an area that large, particularly when there’s outlying buildings. And you’ll recall that when a shooter shot successfully at Donald Trump, hit him in the ear, that was the Secret Service who was supposed to check every single outline building, and somehow that shooter still got through. Someone like Charlie Kirk is not going to have that level of security that is securing every building,” said Eric O’Neill, a former FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence operative.
Authorities say 22-year-old Tyler Robinson scaled a building with single-bolt action rifle before taking the lethal shot at Kirk, who was outside surrounded by hundreds of Utah Valley students as part of his “American Comeback Tour.”
“When you invite external speakers to come onto campus, there should be some consideration about a threat analysis done, what is the potential for this speaker to to endanger the campus, so to speak, because of the controversy surrounding that speech, and, if so, security needs to be built into the event,” said Kenneth Gray, a former FBI agent and lecturer on homeland security, criminal justice and emergency management at the University of New Haven.
Ben Shapiro, like Kirk a conservative firebrand and prominent speaker, emphasized after the shooting that he will not be pulling back in the face of threats.
“I saw a lot of rumors online today. I was made aware of this by my team, that I canceled some sort of college tour. That’s bulls—. I saw those rumors. They are false. I will be coming to college campuses, many of them this year. So will we all, I am sure, because we’re Americans and we’re not going to be deterred,” Shapiro said Thursday.
Colleges have been grappling with violence and threats of violence for years, from mass shootings to injuries at protests.
As the new school year begins, more than a dozen universities have gotten hoax shooting or bomb threats that have caused campuses to shut down and brought police racing to the scene. The day after Kirk was killed, at least five historically Black colleges and universities received campus threats.
Experts say the only definitive way to prevent another tragedy like Kirk’s slaying would be to hold these sorts of events indoors, in tightly managed spaces.
“Ben Shapiro receives the same sort of anger and hate as Charlie Kirk did for someone at his level. And there are speakers on the other side of the aisle too” who receive these threats, O’Neill said, “but Ben, in particular, I think, has to be concerned. If I was him, I would require it to be a large inside auditorium. I think you’re going to see speakers move inside after this.”
Some campuses may also say that “to provide sufficient security for this is going to cost this amount of money, and it is up to the to the student club that is inviting the speaker on to come up with those extra funds,” Gray said.
“If it’s going to cost more than that, they have to cancel the event or come up with the funds to support the security of the event. So, that is something that is of each university to see how they’re going to deal with that type of an event,” he added.
But the issue with all such security questions universities will be asking is how they can apply changes in a way that won’t violate the First Amendment.
While schools have a right and obligation to consider the safety of their campuses, free speech advocates say concerns arise when talks of restricting speech to certain parts of campuses occur.
“When we’re looking at any time a school is going to restrict free speech on campus, like with an event, or when someone’s having a speaker come to campus or a performance, we want to make sure that the school is applying their rules evenly in content and viewpoint-neutral ways,” said Amanda Nordstrom, strategic campaigns counsel for campus rights advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
Advocacy groups such as FIRE say they will be on the lookout for if speakers with one particular political viewpoint are restricted to a worse part of campus while the other side gets better venues, or if clubs from only one side of the aisle are enduring costlier security fees from the university.
“Maybe schools will start charging more money to students in security fees when an event is controversial. That’s when my antenna goes up and says, ‘OK, well, who says what’s controversial and what’s not controversial?’ Because the First Amendment requires that any restrictions on student free speech there must be made according to content and viewpoint-neutral criteria,” Nordstrom said.
“So if we have an administrator deciding that this group speaker is too controversial, so we’re going to charge them more to have security at an event than this other group who is just bringing a speaker we don’t think is controversial, that would violate the First Amendment, and schools cannot do that,” she added.
