The day that Charlie Kirk was assassinated, Sept. 10, 2025, is seared into Diego Victoria’s memory. A senior at Yale University studying political science, Victoria recalled his peers celebrating the conservative activist and Turning Point founder’s death all week through memes, jokes with hundreds of upvotes on the campus social app, and comments heard in the dining halls and classrooms.
“That was honestly one of the hardest days of my college experience,” Victoria said. “Because so many of the views that Charlie Kirk had, I share them.”
It was out of that experience that Victoria decided to start a Turning Point USA chapter on Yale’s campus, which launched officially this month and has about 100 student members, according to Victoria.
Yale’s chapter is one of dozens across the country that have launched since Kirk’s death. Turning Point’s website claims to currently sponsor 1,500 college chapters, including at 69 campuses around New England. A CNN report found that the organization had grown by 64 percent over the past year.
Students I spoke to say they want to promote dialogue — especially about economics and foreign policy — expose students on liberal campuses to opposing viewpoints, and at the very least, not be condemned for having a different political opinion that puts them in the small but not insignificant minority.
In many cases, conservative student groups meet to discuss politics, the news, and — what nearly every student told me — to have a “safe space” to talk honestly about their beliefs. Most of them had good relationships with the Democratic clubs on campus but had experienced harassment from far-left groups and individuals, including having their posters covered up.
“Even though we get a lot of very derogatory comments and damn near threats, we don’t care at all because we know exactly why we’re doing this, and we have a lot of people on board,” Victoria said.
The social consequences are real: A 2026 University of California, Irvine study found that 47 percent of Democrats reported having experienced a political breakup — most of whom were the ones cutting off friends and family — compared to just 29 percent of Republicans.
But the students are still showing up. The day Kirk was killed, the Tufts University Republicans club held its first general interest meeting for the fall semester, and about 15 students showed up, more than triple the amount of attendees from the previous semester. One of them was Mack Kozlowski, who now serves as the club’s president. Kozlowski said the group is anticipating 20 to 25 members this semester.
Late last September, Dartmouth College’s infant TPUSA club held its first event, cohosted by the Dartmouth Conservatives: a vigil for Kirk. Nearly 50 students showed up, standing in the rain with electronic candles covered by plastic cups.
Some schools in New England, like Dartmouth, have tried to bring greater ideological diversity to their campuses. Dartmouth Dialogue started in 2024 to encourage “active listening” and “empathy building” among students with different points of view.
Vittorio Bloyer, a junior at Dartmouth College and the president of TPUSA at Dartmouth, said that while it was a “big deal” for fellow conservative students to request approval for the club, he said he has mostly been respected by his peers on campus, aside from the occasional negative post online.
Tufts University’s Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education hosts public forums on a range of viewpoints on hot political and cultural topics.
These initiatives are necessary to bridge divides and demonstrate dialogue, but also to stem extremism. If some students didn’t fear social repercussions, then more moderate students might join, as one Northeastern student told me. At the very least, students who want to feel represented on campus might be willing to turn to already established conservative clubs.
Many colleges are working to promote dialogue and Republican clubs are offering safe spaces for conservative students, but they need to ensure that it doesn’t come at the cost of harassment and online doxxing. Kirk’s inflammatory language and confrontational debate methods were controversial and provocative. His events also stirred up conversation and forced students to defend their ideas more articulately — and sometimes be persuaded to change their minds.
If schools want to eliminate polarization and extremism on both sides of the political aisle, they might start by countering echo chambers, advocating for free speech, and providing space for healthy and serious debate.
“America was a country founded on debate. … It was founded on the idea that we could have these discussions and not kill one another,” Kozlowski said. “And now that’s falling apart. So a lot of us are like, ‘hey, we need to actually work to get this back.’”
Kara Bettis Carvalho can be reached at kara.carvalho@globe.com. Follow her on X @karabettis.