Staff Reports
Turning Point USA showed what courage looks like on a college campus this weekend, handing out 5,000 white “FREEDOM” shirts at the Penn State vs. Oregon game as a tribute to Charlie Kirk. What some in the media hoped would intimidate conservative students only energized them, turning a football stadium into a living statement that the fight for free speech and American values will not be silenced.
Lines snaked across parking lots as students and alumni waited to grab the shirts, and videos from the scene captured chants of “USA!” echoing in the tailgate lots and student sections. Turning Point also set up voter registration tents, making clear this wasn’t a stunt but a sustained effort to organize young Americans who love their country.
Every patriotic American knows why this mattered: Charlie Kirk was senselessly gunned down while defending open debate on a college campus, an act that shocked the nation on September 10, 2025. The outpouring at his memorials and the resolve shown by conservative students at Beaver Stadium are proof that martyrdom will not end a movement—it only fans the flames of conviction.
People who want to see the conservative movement shrivel up should watch what Turning Point did and learn a lesson: you cannot bully or cancel an idea out of existence. TPUSA has leaned into Charlie’s legacy with memorial apparel and a renewed campus push, proving that activism, organization, and common-sense patriotism are the answers to intimidation.
Meanwhile, too many in the establishment press still reflexively frame every conservative gathering as “controversial” while giving soft coverage to the epidemic of political violence that targeted one of our brightest voices. We will not accept moral equivalence between brave students exercising their First Amendment rights and those who seek to silence dissent with violence.
If you believe in free speech, now is the time to stand up and be counted—wear the shirt, register voters, and show up at events. The left wants us intimidated; instead, we are organizing, turning sorrow into strength, and proving on college campuses across America that the next generation will not surrender the flag or the truth.
