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<\/p>\nDespite being a political junkie and longtime fan of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, Shasta College senior Raymond Randolph hesitated to speak up about politics on campus. But Kirk\u2019s killing during a Turning Point USA event at a Utah university in September changed that.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod was calling me up to the plate,\u201d Randolph said.<\/p>\n
The day after Kirk\u2019s death, Randolph reached out to Turning Point, which Kirk had founded, to start a chapter at his college in Redding. As the chapter\u2019s president, he said he\u2019s not alone in feeling mobilized after the killing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt drove a lot of people like me to get up and do something,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While conservative students say they\u2019ve felt hesitant to speak aloud in the past, they now say emerging Turning Point chapters have helped them break out of their shells in California, with one student even describing them as a \u201csafe space.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of March this year, Turning Point USA said it has 1,462 active college chapters nationally. Over 70% of those were founded after Kirk\u2019s death. Turning Point\u2019s presence has nearly tripled on California campuses as of March, with 78 of the state\u2019s 119 active college chapters founded after the slaying.<\/p>\n
But conservative views continue to be overshadowed by more liberal voices on California campuses as tensions persist in and outside classrooms, students and professors say.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of [the liberal students] think we\u2019re racist, most of them think we\u2019re fascists \u2026 especially in California,\u201d Randolph said.<\/p>\n
Kameron Tessier, president of the statewide California College Democrats organization, said Turning Point\u2019s rhetoric is \u201cdisgusting and very bigoted\u201d and must be investigated on campuses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a firm believer in the 1st Amendment, but also the 1st Amendment has its consequences,\u201d said Tessier, a senior at UC Santa Cruz. \u201cIf they are pushing actively dangerous rhetoric on campuses, then I think it\u2019s worth it for administrations to look into that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Protesters hold signs as they demonstrate outside of a Turning Point USA event at UC Berkeley on Nov. 10.<\/p>\n
( Justin Sullivan \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Among Kirk\u2019s most controversial comments include calling<\/a> the Civil Rights Act \u201ca huge mistake,\u201d spreading COVID-19 misinformation<\/a> and saying some gun deaths each year were worth it to protect the 2nd Amendment<\/a>.<\/p>\n Creating red spaces in blue places Bike protest organizer Luca Davis called Turning Point\u2019s values \u201cun-American\u201d and said the national organization\u2019s harmful rhetoric should not be tolerated on campuses. A junior at Pitzer College, which is part of the Claremont consortium, Davis said he hoped that having dozens of students laughing and blasting music as they biked by the tabling event would act as a visible \u201cfoil\u201d to Turning Point\u2019s values.<\/p>\n Despite the tension, a Turning Point student leader said that membership has grown substantially since Kirk\u2019s death, and most members are underclassmen.<\/p>\n Gabriel Khuly, a 19-year-old Floridian, said he became disillusioned by Democratic politics after he moved to California to attend Claremont McKenna for college.<\/p>\n \u201cYou really only get to see how stupid and bad Democrat policies are once you get to [really] see them,\u201d he said, citing the high concentration of homelessness on Skid Row and high food prices.<\/p>\n The self-described \u201cgadfly\u201d and well-known conservative on campus said he noticed his right-leaning peers often don\u2019t feel fully comfortable sharing their views, both in and out of the classroom.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is still a sort of desire \u2026 to at least partially conceal those views,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Khuly has received a lot of flak for voicing his political opinions on campus, particularly on the anonymous, campus-based social app Fizz. In late September last year, Khuly wore his MAGA cap and, alongside his friends, debated students on abortion and climate change at a table outside the campus dining hall. Later, a post on the campus app called him \u201cthe most insufferable, weird, and [expletive] guy on the planet,\u201d receiving more than 1,500 upvotes.<\/p>\n Khuly said \u201che could not care less\u201d about the retaliation.<\/p>\n Gabriel Khuly, a student at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont. Khuly is wearing a shirt that reads \u201cGOP\u201d in Greek lettering.<\/p>\n \u201cThese sorts of people, they don\u2019t exist in the real world,\u201d he said. \u201cThey exist online, they exist on college campuses, they exist at bougie millennial coffee shops \u2026 they\u2019ll block up the streets for traffic for some protest or whatever, but outside of that, they don\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n Up north in Shasta County<\/a>, voters aged 18 to 20 are more likely to register Republican than those aged 21 to 29. But Shasta College itself, according to Randolph, is still a liberal hot spot, where speaking against liberal viewpoints wasn\u2019t really allowed \u2014 until his Turning Point chapter came along.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople have said that they\u2019ve gotten a lot of relief now that they know we\u2019re on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n In some instances, tensions have boiled over, like at Turning Point\u2019s final tour stop<\/a> at UC Berkeley in November. Fights broke out, with one man hospitalized after he was struck in the head. Police in riot gear arrested several people. In March, a heated exchange<\/a> occurred at Cerritos College between Democratic congressional candidate Shonique Williams and Republican students and activists. <\/p>\n Political conflict in the classroom<\/p>\n Scott Waller is the chair of the Political Science Department at Biola University in La Mirada, which Niche calls the most conservative college in California \u2014 and the 24th most conservative in the nation.<\/p>\n During both of Trump\u2019s administrations, Waller said he has noticed an increased \u201canxiousness\u201d in the classroom.<\/p>\n \u201cIf a student expresses his or her displeasure with the current Trump administration, they will know that there are students similarly animated in a very virulent way to defend the Trump administration,\u201d he said. \u201cThat creates some tension in class.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet, some educators relish in-classroom conflict. Stephanie Muravchik and other scholars across the Claremont Colleges analyzed millions of college syllabuses<\/a> last year to see how professors teach about some of the most contentious subjects in academia, including the ethics of abortion and the Israel-Hamas war. They argued that only a small fraction of professors teach the full range of controversy in the classroom. <\/p>\n
Students founded a Turning Point chapter at Claremont McKenna last spring. After Kirk\u2019s death, college security supervised each of the chapter\u2019s events. Several students heckled a vigil they held after Kirk\u2019s shooting in September. And at a February campus Turning Point tabling event, dozens of partially nude bikers<\/a> rode by in protest of the national organization\u2019s viewpoints.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1779790869_127_.jpeg\")
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