It should not have taken an assassin’s bullet to trigger Texas colleges and universities into action.

By such action we don’t mean more locked doors on dorms, clear bags at sports events, additional slots to swipe a student ID, or other exercises of security theater. We mean definitive, campus-culture-shifting, administrative mandates to protect and exemplify the entire Bill of Rights — a rarity that became a lot more common this week — and even save the lives of the outspoken.

While the investigation is still ongoing regarding Charlie Kirk‘s assassination at Utah Valley University, and we cannot ascribe a motive for the shooter as of yet, anyone paying attention with even a scintilla of objecitivty knows that public college campuses are disproprtionately hostile to conservative and America First viewpoints. The stakes can be high for students with a minority viewpoint and even higher for those courageous enough to speak out.

Now the suburban Utah campus can hardly be blamed for failing to anticipate a sniper aiming for a private citizen like Kirk. But that it happened on a college campus, even surrounded by one of the more conservative enclaves in the U.S., underscores why exactly Kirk’s “prove me wrong” tables and speaking tours have proven so controversial (hang on to that word) in the first place. In other words, campus conservative activists, guest speakers of a rightward persuasion, and even itinerant fire-breathers with Bible in hand are subject to ridicule, censorship, and even violence. Numerous conservatives, from talking heads to keyboard warriors, are laying the blame squarely at the feet of the Progressive Left for fomenting an atmosphere where the persecution and murder of conservatives is celebrated and even encouraged.

This attitude is replete in academia. Yes, even in this supposed bastion of rugged individualism, Biblical values, and free enterprise we call the Lone Star State.

There have been entire national organizations and campaigns dedicated to this disparity — Campus Reform, Speech First, and FIRE among them, not to mention the many initiatives of campus orgs such as College Republicans, Young Conservatives of Texas, Young America’s Foundation, Young Americans for Liberty, and not to mention Kirk’s Turning Point USA. Their hard work may finally be coming to fruition.

Conservatives and assorted freedom-lovers on the right are a strong undercurrent in campus culture, though are often dismissed as “controversial” — the Left’s buzzword for anything that riles liberal orthodoxy at the moment.

The timing could not have been more appropriate for the release of a recent, gigantic poll which suggested strong support for banning so-called “controversial” speakers on campuses. The sixth annual College Free Speech Rankings, released on Tuesday by FIRE and College Pulse, presented responses from 68,510 students from 257 U.S. colleges and universities. While a majority supported banning “controversial” speakers, other findings are eye-popping to anyone who thinks our campuses are havens for free intellectual exploration:

• 34% of students said using violence to stop someone from speaking on campus is acceptable.
• 72% of respondents indicated they believe shouting down a speaker on campus is okay.
• Between 24-28% often “self-censor” around other students on campus or in the classroom, fearing consequences of wrongspeak.
• Only 27% of students responded they believe a speaker’s rights to express their “controversial” views would be supported by the administration.

But whose concept of “controversial”  would this be? As but one example of such bias: an activist interviewed a snippet of students on the University of Texas at Austin campus and found several who believed Kirk’s assassination was a positive thing. Watch and weep:

https://twitter.com/Bubblebathgirl/status/1966015573315203304

University of North Texas in Denton put out a statement condeming support for political violence, after a video surfaced of a student confromting classmates for laughing at footage of Kirk’s assassination.

The sentiment is also strong among public university faculty, keeping HR departments busy this week. With the liberal attack machine temporarily quelled, they must have gotten a memo now allowing for the dismissal of those who celebrate political murders. As a couple of examples of many yet to come:

• Texas State University in San Marcos canned a professor accused of attempting to incite even more political violence at a Socialist conference.
• Though a private institution, a Baylor University student teacher (a teacher in training, in other words) was quickly dismissed by Midway ISD (near Waco) after celebrating the shooting on social media.
• Earlier this week, Texas A&M was in the crosshairs after a video surfaced of a children’s literature instructor clashing with a student over “gender identity” content. The university, once one of the more socially conservative public institutions of higher learning in America, attempted to silence the student after the instructor kicked her out of her class.

In a recent episode of “The Spectacle” podcast hosted by The Hayride publisher Scott McKay and American Spectator editor Melissa Mackenzie, one of the most conservative Texas House members weighed in on the problem at hand at Texas A&M and other campuses. Rep. Brian Harrison of Waxahachie in North Texas shouted “This is the government of the state of Texas, and I’m sick of … the elected Republican leadership of Texas that has been promoting DEI [and] funding transgender indoctrination … every college in the state of Texas [is like this].”

Harrison pointed to A&M President Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, once an appointee of Barack Obama‘s administration, as where the buck stopped. But several other state officials were quick to appeal to the A&M System head, Chancellor Glen Hegar, who was until recently Republican-elected Comptroller and before that a state Senator.

Even before the Kirk assassination — but shortly after the surfacing of video footage of a throat-slashing on a Charlotte transit bus shocked the nation — the vibe started to slowly shift.

Hegar, in a statement, praised President Welsh for terminating the instructor who “failed to follow instructions to align her course description with the actual content of her class.” A dean and a department head were reportedly demoted. As Harrison deftly poined out, the notorious “gender unicorn” poster was on the wall behind the student being berated for her beliefs. The student had expressed that the gender identity indoctrination was nowhere mentioned in the syllabus or course description, and was a complete surprise. Hegar said he has instructed department heads to begin auditing all course offerings on all campuses in the system, a move praised by many in power including Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. 

In Texas, public college and university presidents are hired by the governing board of the institution, such as a Board of Trustees (sometimes elected in a community college district) or Board of Regents. Regents (appointed by the governor). Similarly, Regent boards elect system chancellors.

With three decades of Republican dominance of statewide elected executive positions and majorities in both legislative chambers, that it took this long for an official like Hegar to take definitive action says a lot about the political will of Texas leaders to tackle campus problems. Frankly, it hasn’t been there, except on notable issues such as campus carry and DEI-based admissions.

Harrison called on Abbott to not only fire Welsh but to instruct all university regents to fire “every taxpayer-funded official” supporting far-left indoctrination and beratement of public university students.

It’s “taxpayer abuse,” Harrison added, “to have their money weaponized against them … And this is being done, not at the hands of Democrats; this is done at the hands of elected so-called Republicans in the state of Texas.”

While true that Republicans lack the super-majority to simply steamroll any permanent, massive reform of campus culture through the process, official reaction to recent events proves that it can be done. The only question left is when?