Charlie Kirk wanted more free speech. After his killing, we’re hearing less | Opinion
The first bill to be proposed in advance of next year’s Kansas Senate legislative session will be a proposal to establish Oct. 14 as Charlie Kirk Free Speech Day, Kirk’s birthday. Kansas is not the first to consider honoring the Donald Trump ally and conservative activist. That laurel goes to a state senator in Oklahoma who filed similar legislation just days after Kirk’s assassination on Sept. 10. Now I hear national legislation is coming.
Before Kirk’s killer was even caught, a shocked nation united around the idea that we needed to cool down the rhetoric while uniting on free speech values and learning to be more civil with one another. Even Trump made the call that we should stop the demonizing “in the most hateful and despicable way possible,” though Trump’s call was a more one-sided demand that the left tone it down.
Democrats and media pontificators like me from the left and right all came together in a kumbaya chorus. So how are we doing in this effort to unite around free speech and civility? Not well.
Before the youth leader was buried, people who were jerks on social media began to be fired from their jobs for their impolite, some might say despicable, free speech. The New York Times numbered those dismissed or disciplined at 145 only two weeks later.
In the months since Kirk’s death, the two parties have united in an effort to silence as many voters as possible who want to be heard through elections. Those responsible for the tit-for-tat gerrymandering from California to Missouri and Texas to Maryland hope it will make millions of Americans’ most precious opportunity to shape the direction of their country into a stale formality Soviet voters would understand. We might as well rename Congress the Duma.
Trump’s taste for civility was a passing thing. Today it doesn’t even extend to members of his own party. When the rebellious and now retiring Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene begged him in a phone call to stop calling her a “traitor” and fueling the death threats against her, he laughed her off.
In Indiana, where one of the Republican efforts to steal a congressional election is sputtering under assault from principled conservative state legislators, nearly a dozen of the heroes have received violent threats. Police are protecting them in hopes that gunfire can be avoided.
The Pentagon is investigating congressmen for posting a video Pete Hegseth doesn’t like. Trump is cheering for The New York Times to go out of business. George Mason University is demanding pro-Palestinian students take down their insensitive video. And Amazon has started editing guns out of James Bond movie posters.
College students get the message. According to a survey of 2,000 undergraduates by free speech advocates at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, 56% of conservative students, 43% of moderate students and 41% of liberal students all said they were less comfortable expressing their views on a controversial political topic during a class discussion. The students had similar feelings about hosting or attending controversial events on campus.
A Florida State University poll found that 59% of Americans think that speech can be as damaging as physical violence, a ludicrous contention that Kirk himself fought against. The notion is particularly destructive to a free speech culture because it justifies the use of force to silence such damaging words. And indeed, the same study found that 1 in 5 young adults think violence is acceptable to stop wrongspeech.
Free speech has never been easy. Charlie Kirk’s missions to liberal colleges where he’d spend hours debating with anyone who came to the microphone were never easy. But they were an example of how to do politics right, facing those who disagree instead of cocooning with only those who share your views.
Three months after Charlie Kirk was killed, would he look down from his lofty perch and be proud of his legacy? The way we’re acting, I doubt it. It is going to take more than a free speech day to fix this mess.
David Mastio is a national columnist for The Kansas City Star and McClatchy.
This story was originally published December 11, 2025 at 6:08 AM with the headline "Charlie Kirk wanted more free speech. After his killing, we’re hearing less | Opinion."
