“A nightmare” for colleges: Rider responds to Charlie Kirk’s death

By Grace Bertrand

Micah Rasmussen, director of Rider’s Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics, called the recent murder of Charlie Kirk, an American conservative political activist, “an act of desperation.” 

Rasmussen said, “When it comes to political violence, there is a feeling of helplessness, a feeling that you don’t have another way to make your mark, a feeling that voting and participating in the process isn’t going to achieve your goals, and ultimately it’s really an act of desperation.” 

A universitywide call for civil discourse

Kirk, 31, co-founded Turning Point USA, an American nonprofit organization that advocates for conservative politics in academic institutions like high school, college and university campuses. He was the president of the organization prior to his assassination. 

His activism included touring college and university campuses to debate students on political issues that have become more prevalent in headlines in recent years such as abortion, gun rights and the deportation of undocumented immigrants. 

On the first stop of what was meant to be his “American Comeback Tour,” Kirk was fatally shot in the neck on Sept. 10 at Utah Valley University.

Rasmussen said, “To somebody who’s desperate, to somebody who’s not well, violence seems like the answer.” 

With the responsibility of holding civil political discourse events at Rider, like the upcoming New Jersey gubernatorial debate on Sept. 21, Rasmussen understands the importance of having a respectful exchange of ideas. 

He said, “The thought that we might not be able to have free and open discussions and debates on American college campuses is horrifying. It is just the worst possible thing. It’s a nightmare.” 

The debate will now require more enhanced security to ensure the safety of all parties involved and the attendees watching, according to a Sept. 14 universitywide email from Rider President John Loyack, in light of Kirk’s assassination taking place on a university campus. The email stated that Rider is “taking every precaution to ensure the safety of our campus and our community.” 

TPUSA holds a presence on over 1,000 college campuses nationwide, with Rider being one of them. Its chapter is led by President Mason Capasso, junior marketing major, and Vice President Nick Testa, senior global supply chain management major. 

Following the assassination, Rider’s TPUSA took to Instagram to share a message mourning the loss of their founder, writing, “Charlie you will forever be an inspiration to our youth. May the Lord comfort your family as you sit by his side.” 

Testa recounted the initial sadness he felt when he first heard the news, saying, “I’ve never felt that kind

of grief for someone who I’ve never met before. It 

was definitely strange for me, but I guess that kind of shows how much of an effect he’s had in my life and my political career.” 

Capasso shared a similar sentiment and explained the several opportunities he owed to TPUSA as president of Rider’s chapter, which he said would not have been possible without Kirk to begin with. He also expressed a desire to hold a vigil for Kirk, but did not follow through with it in the end. Capasso said that his TPUSA coordinator recommended the chapter take a two or three week break given the circumstances. 

In Loyack’s email, he empathized with Rider’s TPUSA and said, “This tragic murder is a moment for Rider University to pause and reaffirm our values, especially that we celebrate our differences, for they are our strength. As a community, we join our TPUSA students and their allies in decrying this act of violence.” 

Loyack continued and further emphasized the university’s zero-tolerance policy for any kind of violence against other members of the community: “We honor freedom of expression, and above all we embrace civility and care for one another.” 

In a Sept. 15 interview with The Rider News, Loyack said “Everybody can have different points of view. That’s a beautiful thing of the human experience. You might enjoy something that I don’t or you might have a view of something and my view might be different. What we can’t do is be mad at each other all the time over it.”

The rise of political violence in America

With the escalation of political violence in the U.S. comes a more intense political climate, which Rasmussen recalled was not always the case. Graduating from Rider in 1992, Rasmussen said the civility in politics now feels “light years away from then.” 

Rasmussen also cited the political state of America in the wake of the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. He said the horror Americans once felt in the wake of these killings could be felt now: “The choice is more violence or stop here, change something … prevent it from escalating further.”

Rasmussen assigned the blame for the divided state of the political climate to the leaders running the nation. He recalled several times during the pandemic, in President Donald Trump’s first term, where he thought Trump had missed opportunities to unify America through a difficult situation. 

“There are political leaders who are speaking in ‘us versus them’ rhetoric,” Rasmussen continued, “[Trump] has chosen to come to power as somebody who’s dividing us. He’s not the only person who’s dividing us, but he’s the ‘divider in chief.’” 

On Sept. 11, Trump addressed the nation in a speech at The White House, in the wake of Kirk’s death: “I’m really concerned for our country. We have a great country. We have a radical left group of lunatics out there, just absolute lunatics, and we’re going to get that problem solved. I’m only concerned for the country.”

Trump then requested for his supporters to respond with non-violence, as Kirk had done throughout his career. 

Rasmussen’s concern in light of Kirk’s death is that younger generations, specifically students, will want to pull away from engaging in political discourse moving forward because it will become easier to tune out rather than use their voice.

“That’s the exact wrong answer to have,” Rasmussen said, “because that’s going to leave our politics to the people who are dug in on either side … it’s going to further move us away from the broad middle of the rest of us. I know this is a time when many people aren’t interested in extremism like this, but when you walk away, you are leaving our politics to the hardliners who aren’t walking away.” 

Testa and Capasso also spoke to the rise of political violence in college campuses across America. Testa said, “I personally feel like everyone should be able to have their voices heard no matter what side of the political fence you’re on … I feel like now that [Kirk] is gone, there’s gonna be a lot less conversation and I feel like that’s not going to be good for the future of this country.” 

Capasso mentioned the reactions from students at the few tabling events Rider’s TPUSA has held, where he said there were people that would approach them to argue and even knock things off the table because they disagreed with the organization’s views.

Rasmussen stressed the persistent need for civil political discourse like the upcoming invitational gubernatorial debate.

He said, “We are nowhere as a society, as a free society, as a democracy, if we can’t have discussions with each other.”