The New College of Florida (NCF), which has undergone a right-wing transformation led by Governor Ron DeSantis in recent years, said it will commission a statue honoring Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, who was killed by a gunshot at Utah Valley University two weeks ago.
The school, located in Sarasota and the state’s only public liberal arts college, said in a statement that the monument will represent its commitment to “defend and fight for free speech and civil discourse in American life.” The announcement comes as countless journalists, educators, and cultural figures face professional retaliation for criticizing Kirk’s legacy of proliferating hate speech and suppressing dissenting voices.
NCF announced the new commission in a September 16 X post along with a digital rendering of a statue, which portrays Kirk sitting at a table with one hand holding a microphone and the other extended in an open-handed gesture. According to a press release, the statue will be funded by private donors, and its exact location will be announced in the coming months.
In recent years, NCF has made headlines for eradicating LGBTQ+ texts from its library, as part of a right-wing takeover that has led to the departure of longtime faculty members and students. In the spring, the school also drew attention for a highly contested budget measure that would have seen it take ownership of the nearby John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art.
In the weeks since Kirk’s shooting, lawmakers and public officials have increasingly sought to enforce how the conservative political commentator is portrayed and memorialized. In Oklahoma, a new bill introduced by Republican lawmakers the day after NCF’s announcement would mandate every public university in the state to erect a dedicated “Charlie Kirk Memorial Plaza” or face monthly fines. According to the proposed legislation, memorial displays would have to include signage characterizing Kirk as a “modern civil rights leader, vocal Christian, martyr for truth and faith, and free speech advocate.”
The crackdown on any criticism of Kirk’s far-right political views, which included espousing racist, sexist, and homophobic bigotry and opposing gun control, has raised alarms among free speech advocates like the American Association of University Professors and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Both organizations have decried the wave of repression, which notoriously led to the suspension of popular late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel. Disney, which owns ABC, where Kimmel’s show airs, said in a statement on Monday that it would reinstate the program.
Countless have pushed back against the efforts to whitewash Kirk’s legacy. Reverend Howard-John Wesley, a Black pastor of the Alfred Street Baptist Church in Virginia, went viral for a clip in which he stated that “how you die does not redeem how you live.” On X last week, Martin Luther King Jr.’s youngest child, Bernice King, rejected a digital illustration that depicted Kirk alongside a lineup of assassinated figures, including MLK, President Abraham Lincoln, President John F. Kennedy, and Jesus Christ.
“There are so many things wrong with this. So many,” Bernice King wrote. “I get tired, y’all.”
