The Murder of Charlie Kirk: Capturing three scenes and early thoughts for my son
The murder of Charlie Kirk prompts me to record for my son a loose, but intriguing, personal link between Kirk’s battle against destructive ideologies and the individual free speech/freedom of the press rights protected by the U.S. Constitution.
Written in third person, versus “to” my son, in “scenes” because he is a motion pictures/film major. Think “first-draft treatment/scrapbook” versus neat and polished essay.
Scene 1
On 24 July 2025, my brother-in-law Steve, a huge fan of Charlie Kirk, sent me the following message:
Kirk was reporting that Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, was trying to evade a federal “ban” on DEI hiring practices. (Link to post)
Steve knew my son was about to start as a freshman at Belmont and that I was opposed to DEI hiring practices and had written a report on such practices at the K-12 level.
I replied to the second tweet in Kirk’s thread (below) but deleted it after Josh Stevenson pointed out that Belmont probably doesn’t receive much federal funding and feeling like writing an email to the university would be a waste of time.
Additional points I made about the infiltration of DEI ideologies at Christian colleges and impact on administrative costs and incompatibility with biblical doctrine are still in the replies. (Screenshots above.)
I also messaged Kirk in case he or his team were planning to do any follow-up, but didn’t get a response.
[End scene 1]
Scene 2
Our son’s drop-off day at Belmont and daughter’s first day of high school were the same day, so we decided my husband would stay home with her and I would make the drive to Tennessee.
I looked forward to the 8 hours with just my son. We’d taken a road trip together to Virginia last summer and listened to every Taylor Swift album in chronological order. Fascinating and exhausting, but perfect for conversation, since we both love dissecting lyrics, debating theme, wrestling with intent versus effect etc, and arguing over the best song. (My pick is “August”; his is “Mirrorball” — same album, similar vibe.1) By the end of the 11th album, we felt like honorary members of The Tortured Poets Department .
With those rich conversations in mind, I decided ahead of time that we should listen to a 12-minute TED Talk by Greg Lukianoff as soon as we made it across the Indiana border.
I’ve known Lukianoff’s work since reading The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure in 2018. As both a graduate student and college instructor, I had watched U.S. campuses turn into bastions of intolerance that embraced ideas antithetical to free speech, e.g, safe spaces, the notion that words are literal violence. The 2017 Middlebury College incident, when students shouted down Charles Murray, still stands out in my memory as especially disturbing at the time.2
After stumbling on Lukianoff’s April 2025 talk, “Let’s Get Read About Free Speech”. I bookmarked it as a potential way to gently alert my son to the challenges he might face, without giving him another Mom Sermon.
In a brief, high-impact speech, Lukianoff’s shares what he calls “four truths that everyone needs to understand that can help get us back to understanding and appreciating free speech”:3
free speech makes us safer.
free speech cures violence.
free speech protects the powerless.
even bad people can have good ideas.
While I can’t agree that free speech (or anything) “cures” violence this side of heaven in a fallen, sinful world, I otherwise agree with the gist Lukianoff’s points.
The key idea I hoped my son would really hear is embedded in this part [bold text]:
Free speech makes you safer.
My mentor is a civil libertarian named Harvey Silverglate, and he spent his career in part defending freedom of speech, both on and off campus. But when the idea started to hit campus, maybe back in the '80s, that bigoted or hurtful or hateful speech had to be banned, he would say, "I'd prefer to know who the Nazis in the room are. So I know who not to turn my back to."
Now Harvey was right. It's about knowledge.
Simply, you are not safer for knowing less about what people really think.
So I'll give you an example. And I hate to break this to everyone here at TED, but lizard people, who live under the Denver airport, do not, in fact, control the world. They don't, I'm sorry. But knowing that your future husband thinks they do or your congressman thinks they do or every single one of your neighbors thinks they do is pretty important information to have.
To understand the world, you must know what people really think.
We listened to the talk, and barely two seconds after it ended my son surprised me with a question that seemed, at first, unrelated:
“Okay, so with what’s happening in Israel, what do you and Dad think about that again?”
I answered, and we discussed it.
Next came: “And who is Jeffrey Epstein? I don’t understand what happened there. An island…there’s a list or something. Trump won’t release it or whatever…what do you think?”
Again, I answered, and we discussed.
More topics came up, then and later on the drive, and we discussed those.
We also talked about what Greg Lukianoff said, how those points measured up against what the Bible says about speech, what I experienced at the colleges I attended, and what he might confront in Nashville, on his campus.
As we neared Indianapolis, I seized the chance to play a COVID-related interview I did in 2022 that he’d never heard. What was meant to be an hour stretched to nearly ninety minutes as we paused to ask questions and clarify things that the host, Dan Cohen, or I had said. I shared where and how my perspective has shifted and stayed the same.
Then we listened to The Telepathy Tapes.
[End scene 2]
Scene 3
We arrived safely at Belmont and did the typical moving-in things. I learned the hard way that the Target closest to any college on such days is the ninth circle of hell that should be avoided at all costs. I tweeted my newfound wisdom.
The next day, in the final moments, I bought a Belmont shirt to go with the hat I already owned, and we snapped a selfie.
I’d left Facebook and Instagram long ago and have avoided sharing photos of my children on X or Substack out of respect for their privacy. But my son is now 18, and after the final hug I was feeling sentimental. So I posted the picture, threaded to the earlier post. “Make good choices!!!” is what we said to the kids when they were younger as an alternative to “Be good!”
Soon after posting, X slapped a “sensitive content” label on that tweet, the “Target” tweet, and scores of other tweets I’d posted in the days and weeks before.
Obviously a picture of my son and I is not “adult content.” I appealed the warning label but didn’t receive a response from X, and the label still appears on the post and every other tweet that got a label that day (and since) on my devices.
Some users say they don’t see the label.
Other users, like @Geordie_grandad in the UK, say the photo is blurred and is “age-restricted adult content.”
Differences between countries could be related to Elon Musk abiding by the European Union Digital Services Act (DSA), described well by John Rosenthal in his excellent Claremont Review article “Make Speech Free Again: How the U.S. can defeat E.U. censorship.” But that doesn’t explain why some U.S. users tell me they can’t see the label, while I still can — nor does it help make sense of why the post was flagged in the first place.4
I don’t see the post right now, but one user had suggested that it was because we are standing on a Christian college campus. That possibility crossed my mind too.
After yesterday, I can’t help but think back to Charlie Kirk drawing negative attention to Belmont but am in no way suggesting there is a connection between X’s censorship of my photo and anything Charlie Kirk said, let alone what was done to him.
[End scene 3]
Draft Epilogue
By the grace of God, my son’s reaction to the Lukianoff talk was better than I’d hoped for, and perfectly illustrated one of Lukianoff’s key points: it is better to know what people truly believe than to silence them. Creating conditions where people fear expressing their views is what totalitarian regimes and fascists do. Equally dangerous, though not mentioned in the TED talk, is insisting on or tries to force others to use or repeat certain words or phrases, i.e., compelling their speech.
The teacher side of me understands that when I know what someone thinks, however errant, I’m in a better position to engage it, correct it, and make decisions in light of it. This recent First Amendment-protected statement by 1,200 individuals in the movie industry comes to mind: I’d rather know than not know. Wouldn’t we all, regardless of whether we support the position or find it abhorrent?
Above all, as his Mom who tried as best I could to train him up in the way that he should go so that when he is old, he will not depart from it (Proverbs 22:6), I want my son to see that the ideologies Charlie Kirk spoke against are one he must be ready to confront himself, even when they come from fellow Christians who are confused or misled. Put on the whole armor of God. (Ephesians 6:8-10). Stand ready to defend as the battle comes to you, and go toward the fight when necessary. Is someone trying silence or censor you? Keep talking.
The highest and best earthly example in this not Charlie Kirk, of course, but Jesus Christ, who always spoke the truth in love, and pointed all he encountered toward faith and hope and away from hate and despair.
To be continued…
Ephesians 6:8-10
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. 14 Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,15 and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. 16 In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; 17 and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, 18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,
“Mirrorball“ has a “lockdown” allusion, per Swift’s own explanation in “The Long Pond Sessions”.
And they called off the circus
Burned the disco down
When they sent home the horses
And the rodeo clowns
I'm still on that tightrope
I'm still trying everything to get you laughing at me
I strongly disagree with many of Murray’s views on human intelligence and other topics, but found the main points in Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960–2010 compelling and prescient when I read it in 2013.
I also posted the transcript on X today: https://x.com/Wood_House76/status/1966125768498430171
There are some pretty funny explanations in response to my “why?” post though! https://x.com/Wood_House76/status/1956749641598255234