How Southern Methodist University Connects to Kirk's Story

Showing 3 Southern Methodist University videos from Charlie Kirk's video collection.

Southern Methodist University holds a specific place in Steven Crowder's media history: it's where his Change My Mind series, the sandwich-board campus debate format that later became one of the most recognizable formats in conservative media, got its start in the mid-2010s. Crowder returned to SMU's campus in the weeks after Charlie Kirk's assassination for the first time in years, bringing significantly heightened security after describing a pattern of violence he said followed the series from campus to campus, including thrown rocks, milkshakes, and acid, alongside doxxing and threats against his team. He contrasted that history with an earlier era of campus speech, noting that Maya Angelou had spoken at SMU only a few years before his own first appearance there without needing anything like the security he now required. SMU also connects to Kirk's story through his own security detail: Brian Harpole, the contracted security chief present when Kirk was shot, held a credential from SMU's Cape Intelligence Program as part of his professional background in protective and intelligence work. Between Crowder's formative campus appearances and Harpole's training history, SMU functions in this material as a recurring, if largely coincidental, backdrop to two separate strands of the broader conservative-media story Kirk's death intersected with.