Louisiana Voice

So, LSU is establishing a lecture series honoring Charlie Kirk as a way to promote free speech?

Is that what it’s come to? It took the murder of a demagogue for an institution like the Ole War Skule to wake up and say, “Hey, we need to promote free speech in honor of Charlie”?

I was somehow under the impression that institutions of higher learning already supported free expression and the exchange of ideas. But LSU wants to set up a free speech program to honor a man who has said the following:

• If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.
  • The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
• If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?
  • The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022
• Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.
  • The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023
• If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?
  • The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024
• If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
  • The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023

At one time or another, Kirk also said:

• Gay people should be stoned to death
• Most people are scared when they see a black pilot flying a plane
• Taylor Swift should reject feminism and submit to her husband
• No one should be allowed to retire
• Leftists should not be allowed to move to red states
• British Colonialism was what “made the world decent”
• -The guy who assaulted the Pelosi’s should be bailed out
• Religious freedom should be terminated
• Multiple black politicians
• “stole white people’s spots”
• MLK Jr was “an awful person”
• The Great Replacement Theory is reality
• Hydroxychloroquine cures COVID
• Vaccine requirements are “medical apartheid”
• Guns deaths are acceptable in order to have a 2nd amendment
• Women’s natural place is under their husband’s control
• Parents should prevent their daughters from taking birth control
• George Floyd had it coming, the Jan 6th protestors didn’t
• The 1964 Civil Rights Act was a “huge mistake”
• Encouraged parents to protest mask mandates
• Mamdani winning in NY is a travesty because Muslims did 9/11
• Muslims only come to America to destabilize Western Civilization
• Palestine “doesn’t exist” and those who support it are like the KKK

And then, there’s this little gem straight out of Kirk’s The MAGA Doctrine: The Only Ideas that Will Win the Future:

“Donald Trump has always been a builder, from hotels to casinos to golf courses—Barack Obama was a community organizer who gave impressive speeches. However, one of the least eloquent points that President Obama made during a speech was his infamous line ‘You didn’t build that.’ It’s no surprise that President Trump understands that businesses and growth are good for the economy and create jobs, while President Obama focused on the government as the solution.”

Left unsaid was that Trump bankrupted each and every casino he “built,” along with several other businesses – or that he’s now using government (read: tariffs) to destroy businesses.

But here’s a thought: While LSU was deifying and beatifying Kirk, it was also delivering a slap in the face to its African American students, including a significant number of outstanding athletes.

What if those athletes responded to those insults by deciding they were no longer going to play? What if they decided they were going to boycott the South Carolina game on Oct. 11? Or the Texas A&M game two weeks after that as a protest of LSU’s worship of a white supremacist?

Football is a huge moneymaker for LSU and such a move would certainly have an impact on the Athletic Department’s bottom line. Would scholarships be pulled? I’m pretty sure Gov. Jeff Landry would at least threaten players with that. But that would literally gut the football season and kill LSU’s cash cow. Can’t let that happen. Such a protest, after all, would merely be an example of freedom of expression, right?