Articles In This Issue

• Free Speech and the Constitution Took a Bullet - David Blaska

• [Looking Back—One Year Ago] Charlie Kirk Debates UW Students in ‘You’re Being Brainwashed’ Tour - Zindzi Frederick

• Peaceful Protests - Gary Varvel

Free Speech and the Constitution Took a Bullet

David Blaska, Blaska Policy Werkes - September 11, 2025

Maybe we were too old to fully appreciate Charlie Kirk in his too-short lifetime, but the young man was engaged in free and open debate on the issues of our time where it mattered most: on our blinkered college campuses. (His “Prove Me Wrong” tour visited UW-Madison 09-04-2024.)

Sure, he was provocative. To some commentators we’ve heard, that was a defect. The implication being that if you poke the sacred cow expect to get gored. Sorry, we consider intellectual confrontation a feature, not a bug. University students need that hard, cold slap of Mennen after shave — if for no other reason than to counteract the progressive hegemony that seems to lock down campuses in its suffocating grasp even in deep red Utah.

Debate — even fierce debate — is how this USA got birthed.

Yet 1,000 students and faculty signed a petition seeking to ban his appearance Wednesday 09-10-25 from Utah Valley University. Got to think crime investigators are poring over the names of those intolerant petitioners.

Kudos to university acting president Jim Mortensen for affirming after the tragedy that his school stands for free speech. Would that the Ivy League and our own Big Ten have that kind of brass! “The left had particular reason to hate Kirk,” law professor Jonathan Turley writes.

“Violent speech has long been acceptable on campuses so long as it targets conservatives. … Campuses have long been the bastions of the left, reinforced by faculties which now have few, if any, conservatives or Republicans. Higher education has long been an incubator for intolerance; shaping a generation of speech phobics who shout down or attack those with opposing views. Kirk struck at the heart of that power base.” . . .

[Looking back—one year ago]

Charlie Kirk Debates UW Students in ‘You’re Being Brainwashed’ Tour

Kirk Engages With Students on DEI Policy, Affirmative Action, War in Gaza

Zindzi Frederick, The Badger Herald - September 5, 2024

Conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk visited campus Thursday to kick-off to his “You’re Being Brainwashed” tour. Kirk heard from and debated students at Library Mall from noon until roughly 3:30 p.m., drawing an audience of around 200 students.

Kirk is the founder and president of Turning Point USA, a right-wing nonprofit organization which advocates for conservative values on high school and university campuses.

The crowd chanted “Charlie! Charlie! Charlie!” as Kirk arrived at his booth.

Kirk was first asked what he thought on replacing the Electoral College with ranked-choice voting. Kirk said the Electoral College gives states like Wisconsin more representation and voice in the election.

“I love the fact that Wisconsin is now one of the most important states in this election,” he said, “and that Wisconsin values and Wisconsin votes are going to have to be heard by both candidates, and that it’s not just a race in Los Angeles and New York City.” . . .

Peaceful Protests

Gary Varvel - September 15, 2025