Politics
University President Vows To Keep Hosting Events Where Speakers Get Shot At
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
OREM, UTAH. Utah Valley University's newly installed president held a press conference this week to address the assassination attempt on conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, which took place on his campus, near his daughters, and apparently near enough to his entire worldview that he emerged from the experience more committed to hosting controversial speakers than ever before.
Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA and a man whose mere presence at a college campus tends to cause the kind of ambient tension that fire marshals have nightmares about, was targeted by a gunman during a campus appearance. He was not hit. The gunman, however, succeeded in hitting the news cycle extremely hard.
The new UVU president, speaking with the calm of a man who has either achieved enlightenment or has not fully processed what happened, told reporters that the university would continue to, quote, 'host the frays.' This is now apparently an official institutional philosophy. The frays. The university will host them. There is presumably a Frays Coordinator somewhere on the org chart updating their LinkedIn.
He also disclosed that his two daughters had been standing yards from Kirk when the shooting occurred, a detail most parents would use to justify never leaving the house again, let alone scheduling a follow-up event with a man who attracts gunfire the way a picnic attracts wasps.
'Free speech is foundational to who we are,' the president said, in a statement that technically applies to everyone including the gunman, though the administration was careful not to make that point explicitly.
Kirk, for his part, has responded to the assassination attempt in the manner one might expect from a man who has built a career on being aggressively present in rooms where he is not entirely welcome. He is fine. He has opinions. He will be somewhere again soon.
Faculty at UVU reached by phone expressed a range of reactions. One associate professor of communications said she respected the president's commitment to free expression but wished the frays could be hosted, perhaps, slightly further from her parking spot. A junior adjunct who asked not to be named said he had attended the event specifically because he expected it to be boring.
'I thought it was going to be the usual thing,' he said. 'Guy yells about universities for ninety minutes, we all feel weird, everyone goes home. I was not prepared for the other thing.'
The university's official statement noted that UVU 'remains committed to civil discourse, open inquiry, and the robust exchange of ideas,' which is the kind of sentence that sounds completely reasonable until you remember the context in which it was written.
Campus security has reportedly been reviewing its protocols. A spokesperson said the department was exploring 'enhanced procedural frameworks for high-profile engagement events,' which, translated from the institutional, means they are thinking about adding a metal detector and hoping nobody asks too many follow-up questions.
Enrollment applications are up eleven percent this week, though the admissions office declined to speculate on why.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.foxnews.com/us/charlie-kirk-assassination-new-uvu-president-says-continue-host-frays-embrace-free-speech