With a suspect in custody in the murder of MAGA activist Charlie Kirk, it’s clear Kirk’s legacy is bound to be as polarized as the campus culture wars trenches where he dwelled.

On Sept. 10, a shooter killed Kirk at Utah Valley University while he was speaking to a large audience.

At age 18, Kirk co-founded Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a conservative non-profit organization focused on education that would eventually become a force in American politics and culture.

As a public speaker, his events attracted thousands of attendees all over the country. Online, he amassed huge numbers of followers across several different mediums and platforms.

Most importantly, he earned the admiration of United States President Donald Trump, who appreciated Kirk’s ability to galvanize young conservative voters and therefore contributed to Trump’s return to the White House in 2024. Kirk is now slated to receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously.

Kirk’s legacy, however, needs to include his controversial and sometimes discriminatory ideas. He was emblematic of a polarized public discourse and how mainstream conservatism has shifted towards more extreme positions.

But his impact cannot be reduced simply to the ways he represented that shift towards extremism, including flirtations with Christian nationalist and white supremacist ideas.

His death is also sadly emblematic of the frightening rise in political violence in the United States since 2016.

Read more: Charlie Kirk shooting: another grim milestone in America's long and increasingly dangerous story of political violence

As a scholar focused on the law and politics of free expression on university campuses, I’m struck by how Kirk also symbolizes how campuses have become central to contemporary politics and culture.

No longer just the site of occasional culture war battles, university campuses are the dividing line between different political persuasions, a training........

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