Over the past month, gun violence has rattled college campuses across America, potentially affecting how students feel about sharing their political opinions.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 10, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University while having a debate with students. In the following weeks, the University of Central Florida received an email from a hacker that was later debunked by the FBI that described a potential threat.<\/p>\n
Although these potentially politically charged events are happening at college campuses, FGCU students feel largely unaffected in their ability to share their opinions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say it\u2019s a little scary, but I think I\u2019d be willing to die for what I believe in,\u201d said graduate student David Rue, an attendee at the Sept. 15 vigil for Kirk at Estero Community Park. \u201cI\u2019m a Catholic, and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, died for our faith, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re called to do if necessary, I would die for what I believe in. I think that anyone, regardless of what side they\u2019re on or what they believe, and I think they should be allowed to come and talk.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Other attendees shared a consensus that no one should deserve to die for their beliefs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel pretty safe at FGCU,\u201d said freshman Lisa Borodulin. \u201dThis is a pretty good campus, and I want it to continue being safe. I [also] want there to be more diversity of thought, more people to be able to express their views, even if they\u2019re controversial.\u201d<\/p>\n
Students on both ends of the spectrum have expressed this feeling of safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a lot of left-leaning views and I\u2019m very moderate when it comes to a lot of things. I can see the worthiness in both sides of the argument,\u201d said sophomore Bea Olson. \u201cI personally don\u2019t feel threatened sharing my views on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether students are conservative or liberal, opportunities for getting involved in voicing their political expression on both sides can be found through various clubs on campus.\u201cRegardless of whether it\u2019s a political event or fraternity event or other event, I think FGCU has always been very safe, and I hope it stays that way,\u201d said Jake Malin, the FGCU Conservatives Club (FCC) President.<\/p>\n
While the club was a former registered student organization, they are still active on campus as an unofficial club.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe police presence and other resources offered to students has always been very visible and very beneficial,\u201d Malin said.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m pretty happy with school safety.\u201d<\/p>\n
While being an unofficial club, FCC hosted and oversaw the Kirk vigil. Hundreds attended the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI first heard about the event when it was still in the works of being planned,\u201d Malin said. \u201cI was informed that it\u2019d be off campus, mostly to accommodate better security and better crowds. And I heard about it probably Thursday or Friday, which is like a very quick turnaround.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eagle News reached out to the Progressive Student Allegiance (PSA) for more information on their organization but did not receive a response by deadline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past month, gun violence has rattled college campuses across America, potentially affecting how students feel about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-1655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}