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Utah Valley University’s announcement that Sharon McMahon — self-styled “America’s Government Teacher” — will address the class of 2026 has rightly set off a firestorm among conservatives who remember what she said online after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Less than a week after Kirk was murdered on UVU’s campus, McMahon posted a thread she later deleted that many on the right say read less like condolence and more like an opportunistic rebuke of the victim.
Students and Turning Point USA activists on campus have described the choice as tone-deaf and disrespectful to a community still healing from a political murder, pointing out that commencement should be a unifying moment — not a platform for political grandstanding. UVU’s Turning Point chapter president said McMahon’s now-deleted post took quotes out of context and minimized the tragedy instead of condemning violence, a charge the university can’t wish away with press releases.
Prominent conservative voices have hammered UVU’s leadership for this misstep, arguing that universities are increasingly comfortable platforming partisan commentators while ignoring how those choices land with grieving families and students. Megyn Kelly and other right-leaning commentators have called out the decision as emblematic of a campus culture that rewards “woke” pieties and punishes those who defend free speech or public safety.
UVU officials insist McMahon is a nonpartisan educator who has previously spoken at the school and draws large audiences, but that defense rings hollow when communities are still processing the real human cost of campus violence. Choosing a commencement speaker should be about lifting graduates and honoring shared values, not about rewarding someone whose early social-media reaction to an on-campus assassination angered a broad swath of students and alumni.
This situation exposes a deeper rot on campus: administrators who fail to appreciate context and sentiment, and who prioritize optics over decency. Conservatives should demand real answers — not PR spin — about why McMahon was selected, whether the university vetted past public commentary, and what measures UVU will take to show genuine respect for victims of violence on its own grounds.
If institutions of higher learning want to claim they are marketplaces of ideas, they must act like it — which means platforming speakers who unite rather than inflame, and showing some moral common sense when tragedies strike on their watch. The public and conservative America will be watching whether UVU stands with its students and the memory of Charlie Kirk, or doubles down on a tone-deaf decision that proves once again that too many campuses value woke credentials over common decency and basic respect.
