University president says campus won’t close for future anniversaries
Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, canceled classes Thursday as the campus prepared for a Turning Point USA memorial marking one year since Charlie Kirk was shot to death while speaking at the university.
UVU President Jon Anderson, who has been in the position for less than a month, said he planned to attend both the memorial and a student protest. He said he wanted to show that the university is a place “where people can bring any idea and have a civil place to have an honest dialogue.”
Anderson said the university would not close for future anniversaries of Kirk’s death.
Students for a Democratic Society at UVU planned to protest the memorial and attended de-escalation training at the university Tuesday night. SDS President Ethan Cunningham told The New York Times that the memorial and canceling classes “is almost like making this a holiday.”
SDS member Collin Grannis told KUTV News that the group wanted people to participate politically without fear. “We want people to get out there and get political and to be able to protest and exercise some of their rights without being scared,” Grannis said.
At the training, Grannis repeatedly said SDS wanted the protest to remain peaceful. He said members had been told not to bring weapons of any kind and to avoid anyone trying to confront them.
“The risk is always there,” Grannis told KUTV. “We want as many people as possible, and that’ll always attract the non-students or bad actors or things like that. But a protest is a place to be able to express yourself.”
The memorial, titled “Freedom Built to Last,” was arranged by Turning Point USA, the organization Kirk founded, as a “deliberate act of remembrance.”
Jimmy Thurston, a 21-year-old engineering student, put a rose in a planter near where Kirk was killed as he spoke to The New York Times. “It’s a way to honor him,” Thurston said. “This was a national tragedy.”
Other students in Orem wanted the whole matter to be over. Kirk’s shooting “is all we are now,” said Ruby Olsen, a 20-year-old anthropology major who watched Kirk speak when it happened.
Olsen and some friends told The New York Times they would not attend the memorial. “A lot of us are trying to get over it,” she said.
Kirk was shot to death while speaking on the UVU campus on Sept. 10, 2025. Tyler Robinson, 23, was arrested and charged with the attack and has pleaded not guilty.
The university said “there will be an increased security presence on campus, and we strive to balance increased safety without causing a disruption to our learning and work environments.”