This Political Violence Didn’t Start in the Streets, It Started in the Halls of Academia

When Charlie Kirk was assassinated this month, it marked not the beginning of political violence in America, but the culmination of a movement that started decades ago. The roots of this crisis trace back to the classrooms of our universities, where speech was redefined, dissent demonized, and violence reframed as justice.

In the early 2000s, professors began teaching that “microaggressions” were not just rude or offensive, they were violence. This was much more than semantics; it reshaped how a generation of students understood speech. If words were violence, then violent responses to speech could be rationalized as self-defense.

By the mid-2010s, this ideology left the lecture halls and spread across campuses. Guest speakers were mobbed, shouted down, and physically attacked. Students labeled opposing ideas as “harmful.” The implication was clear: Disagreement with left-wing ideas constitutes oppression and oppression justifies retaliation.