Charlie Kirk vigils prompt physical and legal fights, as conservatives seek equal campus treatment

The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at an open event on a public college campus threatens to exacerbate years of disputes between conservative organizers and public officials, and even praying for the 31-year-old father of two has become a flashpoint.

A Tennessee city and religious liberty law firm are pointing fingers at each other over what's stopping a resident from hosting a prayer vigil for Kirk on public property, while other remembrances of the slain Turning Point USA founder have been marked by property destruction and violence, with arrests made against both supporters and critics.

An older peer of TPUSA, Young America's Foundation, is petitioning college leaders to sign a "contract for safe campus dialogue," pledging to ensure that conservatives and others on the ideological spectrum "are welcome to talk on campus" and that school employees "support all students along the ideological spectrum equally and in good faith."

College leaders would also agree to allocate "appropriate security" to protect speakers and attendees at campus events, a sore spot for conservatives who believe their events are often blocked, moved to far-off locations or hit with steep security fees based on viewpoint.

YAF chief communications officer Spencer Brown told Just the News the contract is like the University of Chicago's 10-year-old free speech statement, which more than 100 other universities have adopted in some form.

"It is a testament to how far down the wrong path colleges and universities have traveled that a simple acceptance and agreement with the Contract’s tenets would be a significant shift in the right direction," Brown wrote in an email.

Space sought for prayer vigil is for vendors, not 'assemblies'

First Liberty Institute threatened to sue Morristown, Tennessee officials for allegedly blocking a planned vigil for Kirk on its "downtown green," citing a city official who allegedly told resident Brad Tumey a permit would not be granted due to a city ordinance prohibiting "political or religious activities" at that location.

The same message first came from a Chamber of Commerce official, and Tumey also found a "categorical ban" on the permit application website, First Liberty's letter Wednesday said. Tumey applied to host the rally Friday anyway, "hoping the City will follow constitutional law instead of the Ordinance in rendering its decision."

The wording of the ordinance is so broad it would ban "an individual who wishes to quietly read scripture" anywhere on the downtown green, restricting "far more speech than necessary to serve any legitimate interest" under First Amendment precedents, the letter says.

The city "explicitly targets religious practices" on the face of the ordinance "when other comparable secular activities or gatherings are permitted," including "concerts, family reunions, car shows, dances, and corporate gatherings," which also violates the Tennessee Religious Freedom Restoration Act, First Liberty said.

Morristown told the media that Tumey's application hadn't been "fully" reviewed as of Wednesday but that his sought Friday date was unavailable due to preparations "for a Saturday event that has been on the calendar for several months" after the Friday farmers market ends.

"The city neither permits nor denies the right of individuals to peacefully assemble," it said, citing several parks near downtown "well equipped for such assemblies."

City administrator Andrew Ellard sent a formal reply to First Liberty on Thursday that said Tumey's first question to the Chamber, which handles green space applications, was "how quickly will you deny me?" and that he skipped a meeting he had requested.

His first application Sept. 17 said the event would be Oct. 17 – the earliest under a 30-day notice policy – and called it a "Candlelight Prayer Vigil" but "failed to even select that candles or open flames would be used at the event," as well as omitting several other requirements including proof of insurance, so the Chamber rejected it, Ellard wrote.

Tumey's second application that day asked for a Sept. 19 event, not only conflicting with the green schedule but ignoring that the application's purpose is to "prepare for special events in sufficient advance notice" so that necessary city offices can be involved.

The green space ordinance prohibits political and religious activity because it's "primarily used for commerce, i.e. vendors," a legitimate time, place and manner restriction, Ellard said. Tumey was offered a park with an amphitheater "less than 1,000 feet away" from the green.

"The assertion that the City does not permit religious activities or prayer within public places is completely false," Ellard said, misquoting First Liberty's green-specific allegation and citing several religious activities such as prayer services in City Plaza and a vigil scheduled for Sept. 24 at the courthouse "to grieve and honor" recent events.

Arson, assault, pepper-spray and Bible verses

Memorials and vigils for Kirk have sparked vandalism, arson and violence in just the eight days since suspect Tyler Robinson allegedly shot and killed Kirk while he was speaking to thousands at Utah Valley University, protected by his own security and a small number of UVU police relative to other venues where Kirk had recently spoken.

Loveland, Colorado police arrested a suspect this week in the burning of a family's memorial to Kirk and shattering of their car window, prompting a fundraiser that has nearly hit its $2,000 goal. The father told 9News there were five children under age 10 sleeping in the house when the arsonist set fire to the fence-bound sign.

Texas Tech Police Department arrested Camryn Giselle Booker and charged her with simple assault, a Class C misdemeanor and the lowest criminal charge in the state, for allegedly hitting a man on the head holding a sign that read "Rest in Peace Charlie Kirk." The university confirmed she's no longer a student there.

Florida's Lady Lake Police Department charged Courtney Beth Anderson with felony battery on a person over 65 for allegedly shoving a 73-year-old woman, causing her to fall and hit her head, who had asked Anderson to leave The Villages MAGA Club's vigil for Kirk because she was "yelling and holding up her middle finger to everyone at the event."

Up the Gulf Coast, the Pensacola Police Department charged Larry Wayne Hopkins and Troy Donovan Grow with felony battery for allegedly pepper-spraying a man at a vigil who was spray-painting over a mural of Kirk, knocking him to the ground and hitting his head. 

Other vandals struck the Pensacola mural overnight, with messages such as "a good Nazi is a dead Nazi," but Kirk supporters painted Bible verses over the messages.

$20,000 security fee for Ben Shapiro, a third of that for Justice Sotomayor

The YAF contract is getting sent to more than 3,200 leaders of accredited colleges via certified mail this week "and in the days to come," and the conservative youth organization will track their responses or nonresponses on a website it's setting up, Brown said.

It simply asks for a commitment "to principles that have long been cast aside by institutions of higher learning," that conservatives and others can "contribute to the free and open exchange of ideas" safely and be "treated as equals and not relegated to second-tier status, punished, or face disparate treatment for their ideological beliefs and expression," Brown said.

Asked how YAF would objectively measure compliance by signatories, he gave the example of viewpoint-neutral security fees. YAF will verify whether "the same fee or standard [is] applied to speakers, groups, or events of other ideological stripes" as to conservatives, which prompted several lawsuits by YAF over the years.

Brown noted YAF got a $70,000 settlement from the University of California Berkeley in 2018 to resolve its lawsuit alleging discriminatory policies against conservative speakers and events, also resulting in the elimination of its "high-profile speaker policy," security fee policy and "heckler's veto" that let protesters shut down conservative events.

YAF noted the university had demanded $20,000 to host conservative speaker Ben Shapiro, whose profile was similar to Kirk's, three times more than it charged students to host liberal Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor.

"We have seen too many instances" where conservative speakers and groups are singled out for limited choice of venue, charged to change venues and "other limiting and dissuading factors applied only to conservative groups and speakers," Brown said.