Attorney General Ken Paxton sent a letter to University of North Texas leaders on Friday demanding review of its response to a student conflict over the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this month after a video showing the incident at UNT gained millions of views on social media.
The letter also requests that UNT leaders investigate the students accused of cheering Kirk’s death and the professor Paxton says possibly discriminated against a single student who challenged those peers.
UNT President Harrison Keller said the university is reviewing the incident.
"I appreciate the concerns expressed by Attorney General Paxton," he said in an emailed statement through university communications. "We take these and all allegations of misconduct by students or faculty very seriously. We expect UNT students and community members to conduct themselves in a manner that upholds the values and policies of the university.
"We are currently conducting a thorough review of recent actions by a few of our community members," Keller said. "I am committed to ensuring UNT provides a safe learning and working environment for all of our UNT students and our community."
The Denton Record-Chronicle asked the student who posted the viral videos for a comment Friday afternoon but hadn't received a reply by Friday night.
The incident didn't lead to any reported physical violence.
What happened
UNT student Mary-Catherine Hallmark posted a TikTok video of a confrontation between herself and a group of students who had gathered for a psychology quantitative methods class on Sept. 11. The video shows a female student sharing the video of Kirk's murder on the campus of Utah Valley University a day earlier. While no one is seen cheering on Hallmark's viral video, Hallmark says in a follow-up video that students clapped and cheered, said they hoped he would die and that "this needs to happen to Trump." The video shows Hallmark asking the students why they were cheering about someone getting shot, which led to a confrontation with the student who was sharing the video.
"She, like, comes up and she starts getting in my face and starts pointing and like, the whole class is just reaming me. And I'm like, it doesn't matter. The fact is, this should not be brought up in class," Hallmark says in her video.
Hallmark also said the professor of the class approached her and the students who were arguing and told them they should "take it outside" of the classroom. Hallmark said that the professor directed the remark to her, and that she left the classroom and suffered emotional distress.
In the comments of a later video expanding on the incident, Hallmark said she is a member of the UNT chapter of Turning Point USA. Kirk is a co-founder of the organization, which is best known for his visits to college campuses, where he would invite students to debate his views.
Hallmark said she made a complaint to the dean of students, who directed her to make a complaint to the chair of the psychology department. In her TikTok posts, Hallmark says university leaders didn't tell her she could file a formal complaint, and that she has thus far been able to get the absence from the class stricken from her attendance record for the course. She said she has filed multiple reports that haven't been sufficiently addressed or resolved.
The university posted a statement on social media after the incident. While the statement didn't explicitly confirm an investigation into the incident, it confirmed expectations for student conduct.
“The recent actions of a few of our community members regarding Mr. Kirk’s death do not represent the values of our community. Students who violate the law or UNT Code of Student Conduct will be held accountable,” the statement said.
Kirk was a polarizing figure, and the response to his death reflects the depth and breadth of the country's deepening political and cultural divide. Last Saturday, hundreds gathered for an event honoring Kirk at the Denton County Administrative Courthouse. His critics have responded to the murder by accounting for his stances that they say were used to demean people of color, women, LGBTQ+ Americans and immigrants.
Texas' attorney general weighs in
Paxton notified Keller and UNT Dean of Students Laura Smith on Friday to request a review of university policies.
Paxton said "radical leftists" have celebrated Kirk's murder and promote political violence.
"Unfortunately, Texas has not been immune to this shameful and dangerous conduct," Paxton said in the letter. "Indeed, on the day of Charlie’s assassination, a student at your university chronicled the vile reactions of her classmates on social media, posting a video of other students celebrating his death and expressing hope that the President would suffer the same fate."
He said UNT officials have to enforce their policies regarding student misconduct, employee conduct, student absences and free speech.
On student misconduct, Paxton said UNT's policy prohibits verbal abuse, intimidation or "any other conduct" that threatens health and safety. Paxton pointed out that the policy states that "fighting words and statements which reasonably threaten or endanger the health and safety of any person are not protected speech."
"Any student who celebrated Charlie’s death such that a reasonable person of average sensibility would react to their expression with immediate physical retaliation or expressed a desire for the President to be assassinated may be in violation of this policy, " Paxton said.
Paxton said the university might have broken employee ethics rules, which require staff to act impartially and to show no favor to private or public groups or individuals.
"The course professor’s individual dismissal of this student while classmates were celebrating a political assassination and expressing a desire for more violence may be indicative of viewpoint discrimination," the attorney general said. "Further, inaction by the University’s staff in addressing the student’s concerns regarding attendance, despite numerous conversations, emails, and filed reports, tends to indicate that other employees did not comply with this policy."
Paxton said students could have violated the university's free speech policy.
"The [university's] definition explicitly excludes language that consists of physical harm, threats to engage in unlawful activity, or expressive activities that interfere with the legal rights of others," Paxton said. "Allegations that classmates communicated an opinion that President Trump should also be assassinated may render such statements to consist of physical harm and could constitute a violation of this policy."
Paxton said the disruption itself could constitute a violation of the free speech policy, which doesn't protect expressions that "materially and substantially disrupt the normal operations" of the university.
He said the incident reflect sweeping left-wing ideologies on college campuses.
"For too long, schools across the country have ignored complaints of misconduct against left-wing students," Paxton said. "This lack of disciplinary action has reinforced a principle that such conduct is appropriate and, in turn, has contributed to radicalizing individuals to engage in reprehensible actions. Texans must be reassured that their children are not being subjected to such indoctrination."
LUCINDA BREEDING-GONZALES can be reached at 940-566-6877 and cbreeding@dentonrc.com.
For more than 120 years, the Denton Record-Chronicle has been Denton County’s source for locally produced, fact-based journalism. Your support through a tax-deductible donation or low-cost subscription is vital to our ability to deliver credible, relevant, unique coverage of our community.
