Table of Contents
This week, I have never been more ashamed to be part of the Stanford community.
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, many left-wing students have openly celebrated his death. Stanford’s internal social media has revealed just how deep this hatred runs among academia’s elite.
On Fizz, a social media app only accessible to students with a stanford.edu email account, one student wrote:
“I don’t care that Charlie Kirk died sorry yall. The irony of saying gun violence is inevitable and worth it and then getting nerfed by John Wick is unfortunately hilarious.”
That post was upvoted more than 2,500 times. For context, there are approximately 17,000 students at Stanford; this is nearly 15% of the student population. The number is also stunted by the number of downvotes the post has gotten, so the number is likely larger.
Beneath it, another comment read:
“I thought it was poetic even LMAO.”
This dehumanizing sentiment seems to represent the dominant Stanford student social media response to Kirk's murder.
Others tried to normalize the assassination as just another shooting:
“Very confused why people are freaking out that an influencer got shot today. This is the norm. Send your thoughts and prayers and forget about it… like you did for every other shooting.”
Another wrote:
“Genuine question why does everyone keep on going on abt how we all need to condemn what happened to Kirk but nobody is talking abt school shooting…”
Then came the historical comparisons, as if to justify indifference:
“If hitler himself was killed today people would be apologetic.” This received 572 upvotes.
Over a thousand students upvoted this response:
“Give him some credit in the end he was left leaning.” Another received 430 upvotes for saying: “The grand wizard himself could go down and ppl would demonize indifference.”
And others flaunted their joy openly:
“Just came back from a Charlie Kirk celebration party I’m drunk as f*** guys.”
These gleeful remarks were typed out and posted by members of our own community and are a reaction to the death of a young husband and father. He wasn’t even a politician. His work consisted of going to college campuses and engaging in debate with people, not inciting hate and violence like many want to believe.
I have personally witnessed the dismissive remarks in academia that portray the political right as fascists. During a campus-wide event in late 2024, a Stanford professor called for a youth uprising if Trump were elected, saying our nation would need martyrs to resist his tyranny. After Trump’s victory, professors in my political science classes compared his America to Putin’s Russia.
These are the narratives that lead to embittered youth and political assassinations. Even our nation's brightest academic leaders are incapable of humanizing an opposing viewpoint. It is intellectually dishonest and, even worse, dangerous.
Social media culture has completely dehumanized people who dare to disagree. These students congratulate themselves for empathy and compassion—but only when it serves their narrative. They weep for victims when the shooter is politically useful. But when it’s a conservative, they celebrate.
The same people who denounced violence in Evergreen and Minneapolis are now excusing it, even glorifying it, when the victim is a political opponent. They did the same when Luigi Mangione murdered UnitedHealthcare’s CEO in cold blood, turning Mangione into a folk hero.
This is not empathy. This is moral decay. Empathetic people do not base an individual’s humanity on their politics.
I do not know a single conservative who would celebrate the assassination of a left-wing commentator or a single conservative who hasn’t mourned the loss of children in school shootings. I would never tolerate such cruelty from a friend. So why are people on the left given license to indulge in it? Why is it acceptable for them to dehumanize others?
There must be a reckoning in our community. Dehumanizing those who disagree with you is not “progressive.” It is not “compassionate.” This is the same rhetoric that those on the left claim Kirk was lacking.
However, if anyone were to actually watch his debates, you would see that he did not dehumanize those with whom he disagreed. He actively engaged with them and gave each of them his platform. Anyone who believes Kirk's gruesome execution was justified or not morally reprehensible in every way possible is someone who is complicit in an extremely violent and anti-human narrative.
The alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, had engraved bullet casings with “Hey fascist, Catch” and “Bella Ciao.” He was involved in anti-fascist Discord groups and claimed Kirk was part of the problem. Speaking and engaging with students made Charlie Kirk a fascist, according to this ideology.
Fascism is not debating ideas on college campuses. Those who believe so are perpetuating the exact narrative they seek to dismantle.
In conversations with friends, I likened this assassination to the political murders of dissidents in the USSR or North Korea. But the difference here is that this was not a silent “disappearance.” It was a brazen, public execution recorded from multiple angles, instantly distributed online.
And what horrifies me most is the reaction in my own community. Instead of a unanimous condemnation, I saw Stanford students online celebrating his death and insulting Charlie’s memory.
Charlie Kirk should not have died this way. And I cannot believe that condemning his murder is controversial.
