Jessica Tezoquipa staff writer and Max Magda Bowlby contributor

On Sept. 25 and Sept. 27, the Luther Hall garage door was spray-painted with homophobic and anti-Somalian slurs and derogatory language. It is not a coincidence that the recent hate speech on campus followed days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The hate speech was graffitied on campus two weeks after his death and days after a Turning Point USA event at the University of Minnesota, which was originally meant to be hosted by Kirk before his death. This is a result of his very political death, causing the immediate radicalization of conservative youth which turned into action on this campus. 

In 2021, 2022, and 2023 there were no reported hate offenses on campus per the annual safety report. Having two in a row targeting communities currently being slammed in right-wing media as dangerous, impure, and cultic is not random. It is a premeditated and cruel offense against these communities, which is being used as “payback” for what the “violent left” has done to Kirk amid his assassination. This response through hate speech is immature and is a result of reactionary politics that wholly make up the conservative force in America. 

In the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, we have witnessed the true colors of conservative commentators and spectators alike. Kirk was not a martyr for the Republican party. He was a podcaster who used his platform to target already vulnerable groups in America, such as the queer and immigrant populations. His talks at campuses were not in an effort to hear out the other side; rather, they were used for viral online clips and to falsely claim he is so much smarter and superior than the other side. 

The connection between the campus and Kirk is focused on radicalization. We went four years without hate speech on campus, and after Turning Point USA came to the University of Minnesota, now we have two reports of it? We are not heading in a successful direction; we are regressing with progressiveness in our politics. Now there is this new wave of Gen Z Americans who look up to Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro, and now they see this assassination as an incitement of violence that leftists are wholly responsible for. Meanwhile, the right has been spewing derogatory and negative language towards women, Muslims, immigrants, and queer and transgender people, for a long time. Now their rhetoric has directly made it into policy and action against these Americans, like the hate speech on campus. In a time where we are seeing more and more discrimination protection laws repealed, businesses turning away clients of minority status, and recent immigration raids in our own city, it is hard to look at this hate crime as anything other than horrific and a threat. 

Although the Augsburg administration tried to reach out to the communities affected to hold space for them, and these events were received positively by these communities, it does not detract from the root cause of the hate speech on campus. If we keep idolizing these Gen Z figureheads these problems will continue to happen on our campus, and we need to find the root cause of why conservative white males are attracted to Turning Point USA and The Daily Wire and the hate they spew out. We need a calm and respectful society to keep our democracy from eroding from within America’s borders; that is not possible with treating podcasters and businessmen as the next messiah.