The University of Pennsylvania has refused to disclose the names and personal information of Jewish employees to the Trump administration.
The University of Pennsylvania filed its formal response Tuesday to the Trump administration’s demand that the university disclose the names of Jewish employees without their consent, arguing the request is unconstitutional and that it disregards the “frightening and well-documented history” of governmental cataloging of people with Jewish ancestry.
In a July subpoena, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission asked Penn to turn over the names and information of employees with Jewish faith or ancestry, as well as the personal information of employees affiliated with Jewish studies, organizations and community events. Penn has refused to do so and thus entered into a legal battle with the Trump administration, which is now seeking a court order to force Penn to comply.
“The government’s demand implicates Penn’s substantial interest in protecting its employees’ privacy, safety, and First Amendment rights,” the filing states.
A university spokesperson said the filing is “comprehensive and speaks for itself.” Faculty at Penn and other higher ed groups have backed Penn in its fight to avoid disclosure.
“The charge does not refer to any employee complaint the agency has received, any allegation made by or concerning employees, or any specific workplace incident(s) contemplated by the EEOC, nor does it even identify any employment practice(s) the EEOC alleges to be unlawful or potentially harmful to Jewish employees,” the filing states.
This blog was kindly authored by Professor Mark Simpson, Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Teesside University.
Data is everywhere, but how do we turn it into insights that actually change outcomes for students and graduates?
At Teesside University, this question underpins strategies that have helped us achieve sector-leading recognition: TEF Gold for teaching excellence, Ofsted Outstanding, and Times Higher Education University of the Year 2025.
Did the predictions hold true?
In earlier blogs, we anticipated major shifts: the rise of AI in learning and assessment, deeper collaboration between institutions, and the growing importance of data-driven decision-making. So, did they happen?
AI adoption: far from being banned, AI is now embedded in teaching and assessment strategies, guided by ethic-focussed user principles.
Collaboration: regional partnerships have strengthened, particularly around employability and mental health, though mergers remain rare.
Data-driven action: the sector has moved beyond dashboards to interventions that improve student success, though capability gaps in data literacy persist.
These trends confirm what we argued – universities that embrace innovation and ethical data use are better positioned to deliver outcomes that matter: graduate success, employer confidence, and sector-leading recognition.
This blog moves the conversation from trends to action: the principles and practices that turn data into decisions, and decisions into impact for students, graduates, and employers.
Why actionable insights matter
Data tells us what happened. Insight explains why it happened and what to do next. In a sector where TEF narratives, OfS outcomes, and B3 metrics are under constant scrutiny, insight must be decision-ready: clear, timely, and connected to actions that improve student success.
One example from Teesside University: analysis of engagement and wellbeing data revealed predictable spikes in anxiety before assessments. That’s an insight, but the real value lies in what changes next: assessment tweaks, targeted comms, coaching, or extended mental health support. Without action, insight is just noise.
Principles for turning data into action
Insights only create impact when they lead to meaningful change. These five principles, proven in practice, help ensure your data works for you:
1) Clarity of purpose
Start with a precise aim: Which outcome will we improve, by how much, and by when? Clear goals turn data into a roadmap rather than a report.
2) Integration, not isolation
Data should flow across curriculum design, student support, careers, and employer partnerships into one coherent picture. Bringing in the student perspective ensures this integration is authentic, connecting learning experiences to aspirations, not just administrative targets.
3) Student voice driving decision-making
Students should shape decisions about data use. Co-design privacy, transparency, and wellbeing safeguards with them. Explain the why, what, and how in clear language, and make opting in meaningful by showing how their input drives change.
4) Timely intervention
Move beyond annual reviews to real-time decisions that matter most: before assessments, during placements, and at key transition points. Use student feedback to set the rhythm for dashboards, reviews, and action cycles so insight lands when it counts.
5) Collaboration and ownership
Insight should be co-owned across academics, student services, and employers – with students as equal partners. Involve them in approval panels, curriculum reviews, and evaluation loops. Their lived experience transforms data into stories that resonate and drive action.
Teesside University in practice
Teesside’s approach offers a concrete model for turning principles into practice.
Future Facing Learning (FFL) embeds digital empowerment, global citizenship, and entrepreneurial thinking – making employability part of the learning experience, not an add-on.
Learning & Teaching Framework (LTF)ensures course-first design, authentic assessment, and industry engagement, supported by staff CPD.
Laser-focused strategy & KPIs link performance to TEF and B3, with regular reviews and targeted improvement plans.
Breaking down silos brings employers onto panels and integrates meaningful student voice – feedback that leads to visible change.
Pragmatic AI strategy encourages innovation and future skills, adapting quickly to a world where 65% of today’s primary school children will work in jobs that don’t yet exist.
The challenge ahead (and how to navigate it)
We all face familiar constraints: full curricula and professional body frameworks, budget and time pressures, and capability gaps in data literacy and change management. Progress depends on:
Course-first trade-offs: deciding what comes out when new skills go in; aligning assessments with employability outcomes.
Authentic assessment: using live briefs, micro-placements, and employer co-designed tasks.
Partnership by default: involve employers in approval events and reviews; move beyond advisory boards to co-production of learning.
Data fluency for staff: providing CPD focussed on interpreting and acting on data.
Targeted pilots: start small where the impact is highest (e.g. first-year transition), measure rigorously, and scale.
Turning data into action isn’t about having more dashboards, it’s about better decisions, made faster, with students and employers at the centre.
Teesside University’s experience shows that when strategy, frameworks, and student voice align, employability becomes a lived experience in the curriculum, not a promise on a prospectus.
Professor Mark Simpson is speaking at Kortext LIVE on 11 February 2026 in London. Join Mark at this free event as he dives deep into the strategic impact of data alongside Dr Rachel Maxwell. Find out more and secure your seat here.
Turning Point USA (TPUSA) presents itself as a youth-driven organization committed to “freedom,” “family values,” and protecting young people from ideological harm. Its events, chapters, conferences, and online ecosystem actively recruit high school and college students, many of them minors. That reality alone demands scrutiny. When an organization mobilizes thousands of young people, invites them into closed social networks, overnight conferences, mentorship relationships, and ideologically intense spaces, the question of safeguarding is not optional. It is foundational.
The Higher Education Inquirer is formally requesting that Turning Point USA explain—clearly, publicly, and in detail—how it protects its juvenile members from abuse, exploitation, harassment, grooming, and radicalization.
History shows what happens when powerful institutions prioritize reputation, growth, and loyalty over the safety of children. The Boy Scouts of America concealed decades of sexual abuse. The Catholic Church systematically reassigned abusive clergy while silencing victims. In both cases, leadership claimed moral authority while “looking the other way” to preserve power and legitimacy. These failures were not accidents; they were structural. They occurred in organizations that mixed hierarchy, ideology, secrecy, and minors.
TPUSA operates in a similarly charged environment. Its chapters are often led by young adults with little training in youth protection. Its national leadership cultivates celebrity figures, informal mentorships, and a grievance-driven culture that discourages internal dissent. Its conferences place minors in proximity to adult influencers, donors, and political operatives. Yet TPUSA has not meaningfully explained what independent safeguards are in place to prevent abuse or misconduct.
This concern is heightened by TPUSA’s proximity to extremist online subcultures. The organization has repeatedly intersected with or failed to decisively distance itself from INCEL-adjacent rhetoric and Groypers—a network associated with white nationalism, misogyny, antisemitism, and harassment campaigns targeting young people, especially women and LGBTQ students. Groypers, in particular, have demonstrated an ability to infiltrate conservative youth spaces, weaponize irony, and normalize dehumanizing ideas under the guise of “just asking questions.” These are not abstract risks. They are documented dynamics in digital youth radicalization.
Young men who feel isolated, humiliated, or angry are especially vulnerable to grooming—not only sexual grooming, but ideological grooming that funnels resentment into rigid hierarchies and scapegoating narratives. When organizations valorize grievance, masculinity panic, and enemies within, they create conditions where abuse can flourish and victims are pressured into silence for the “greater cause.”
TPUSA frequently positions itself as a protector of children against educators, librarians, and public schools. That posture invites reciprocal accountability. Who conducts background checks for chapter leaders and event staff? What mandatory reporting policies exist? Are there trauma-informed procedures for handling allegations? Are minors ever placed in unsupervised housing, transportation, or digital spaces with adults? What training is provided on boundaries, consent, and power dynamics? And crucially, what independent oversight exists beyond TPUSA’s own leadership and donors?
Safeguarding cannot be reduced to slogans or moral posturing. It requires transparency, external review, and a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths—even when they implicate allies. Institutions that refuse such scrutiny do not protect children; they protect themselves.
The Higher Education Inquirer awaits Turning Point USA’s response. Silence, deflection, or culture-war theatrics will only deepen concern. If TPUSA truly believes in protecting young people, it should welcome this scrutiny—and prove that it has learned from the catastrophic failures of institutions that came before it.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Turning Point USA”
Wikipedia, “Boy Scouts of America sex abuse cases”
Wikipedia, “Catholic Church sexual abuse cases”
Anti-Defamation League, “Groyper Movement”
Southern Poverty Law Center, reports on white nationalist youth recruitment and online radicalization
Moonshot CVE, research on incel ideology and youth radicalization
New York Times, reporting on abuse scandals in youth-serving institutions
ProPublica, investigations into institutional cover-ups involving minors
Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed Sept. 10.
Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images News/Getty Images
Three months after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the footprint of the right-wing youth organization he founded continues to grow on college campuses.
This week, Turning Point USA chapters at both Indiana University Bloomington and the University of Oklahoma reported membership surges. According to the Indiana Daily Student (IDS) and Indy Star, IU’s chapter says its membership has tripled this fall, from 180 to 363. At the University of Oklahoma—which put an instructor on leave after the Turning Point chapter accused them of “viewpoint discrimination”—the group’s membership has grown from 15 to 2,000 over the past year, NBCreported.
Those increases follow other local media reports about new chapters and membership growth at scores of other universities across the country, including the University of Missouri, and Vanderbilt and Brigham Young Universities. Within eight days of Kirk’s death, Turning Point said it received messages from 62,000 students interested in starting a new chapter or getting involved with one.
“I think that our club has kind of become a beacon for conservatives,” a Turning Point chapter member told IDS, Indiana University at Bloomington’s campus newspaper. “So, after his death, more people showed up, more people got involved, and it was really nice to kind of see a scene in the way people wanted to get involved.”
Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012, with the mission of “to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.”
He gained notoriety in conservative circles by traveling to college campuses across the country, challenging students to prove wrong his conservative stances on topics such as race, gender, abortion and immigration.
On Sept. 10, Kirk was speaking to a crowd at Utah Valley University when a gunman fatally shot him in the neck. After his death, Trump and his allies moved to canonize Kirk as an exemplar of civic debate—and called to punish anyone who publicly disagreed. Numerous colleges and universities have since suspended or fired faculty and staff who criticized Kirk for his political views.
Although some faculty and students have objected to new Turning Point chapters, the students growing the organization insist they’re committed to considering all perspectives.
“You have a place here, you’ll always have a place here,” Jack Henning, president of Indiana University’s Turning Point chapter, told IDS. “We don’t discriminate against any viewpoints at all, we debate them. That’s what American democracy was built upon.”
A revolution quietly underway in American education: the rise of homeschooling. In the past decade, there’s been a 61 percent increase in homeschool students across the United States, making it the fastest growing form of education in the country. You might not have noticed (I didn’t, at first), because only about 6 percent of students are homeschooled nationally. But that number is nearly double what it was just two years ago.
Then I noticed something that made me take a closer look closer to home. At Starglow Media, the podcast company I founded in 2023, nearly 20 percent of our listenership comes from homeschool families. That substantially overindexes against the national population. In other words, podcasts were particularly popular in the homeschool community.
I was curious, for my business and in general. We make podcasts for kids (and their parents) without any specific content for homeschool families. Why was audio resonating so well with this audience? I did some digging, and the answers surprised me.
First, I wanted to find out why homeschooling was booming. According to the Washington Post, the explosive growth is consistent across “every measurable line of politics, geography, and demographics.” Experts have offered multiple explanations. Some families started homeschooling during COVID and never went back, others want greater say in what their children learn. Some families feel their kids are safer from violence and discrimination at home, others think it’s a better environment for children with disabilities. All these reasons collectively suggest a broader motivation: people are dissatisfied with the traditional education system and are taking it into their own hands.
None of these factors, however, explained why podcasts were popular among homeschool families. So I decided to ask the question myself. I reached out to some Starglow listeners in the Starglow community to hear what about the format was appealing to them. Three main themes emerged.
Many people told me that podcasts are uniquely well-suited to address educational hurdles facing homeschool families. When you’re a homeschool parent, it can be difficult to navigate all the resources that inform lesson planning while ensuring that the content is age- and subject-appropriate. Parents have found podcasts to be an intuitive way to elevate their curricula. They can search for subjects, filter by age group, and trust that the content is suitable for their kids. Ads on the network add another layer of value–because parents can trust the content, they tend to trust further educational materials promoted via the same channels. Simply put, the podcast ecosystem offers a reliable means to supplement lesson plans.
They also offer a clear financial benefit. Homeschooling can be expensive, especially in STEM, but the majority of states don’t offer government subsidies for homeschool education. Podcasts have proven to be a cost-effective way to supplement at-home learning modules. Parents appreciate that it’s free to listen.
Lastly–and this came up in nearly every conversation–they fit in well to homeschool life. Routine is a critical part of any educational context, and podcasts are useful anchors in the school day. Parents can easily pair podcasts with lessons at any point in their day, whether it’s a current events primer paired with a news podcast over breakfast or a specific episode of “Who Smarted” (our most popular educational podcast) about how snow forms worked into a science lesson. In this way, podcasts are becoming an integral part of family life in the homeschool community. Educational content like “Who Smarted” or an age-appropriate audiobook of “Moby Dick” may be the gateway, but families tend to co-listen throughout the day, whether it’s to KidsNuz over coffee or a Koala Moon story at night.
What does all this mean? Homeschooling is growing, and with it is the need for flexible, affordable, and trustworthy educational content. To meet that demand, families are turning to audio, which offers age-appropriate solutions that can be worked into family life through regular co-listening.
I expect that the homeschool movement will continue to grow, because new formats and strategies are offering families new opportunities. That’s good news, because we need innovation in education right now. Test scores are falling, literacy is in decline, and school absenteeism hasn’t fully bounced back from the pandemic. The homeschool surge is just one indicator of our increased dissatisfaction with the status quo. If we want to course correct, we all need to embrace new resources, podcasts or otherwise, to enhance education at home and in the classroom. New media has the potential to transform how people teach–we should embrace the opportunity.
University officials said the fee is routine and that they have required the same of other student organizations.
Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images
University of Maryland officials are facing backlash for requiring the campus chapter of a conservative student organization to pay what chapter leaders called a “viewpoint discriminatory” security fee for an event on Wednesday, CBS News reported.
While university police staffed the event free of charge, officials required the chapter to hire its own security to conduct entrance screenings. The event, titled Fighting Like Charlie, featured Daily Wire senior editor Cabot Phillips and was held just over a month after Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed during an event at Utah Valley University.
“It’s basically saying anybody, if they want to threaten our chapter or threaten us because of our viewpoints and our speech, then the university, in turn, is going to impose financial burdens on us, or else we can’t have our events,” University of Maryland senior Connor Clayton, communications chair for the campus Turning Point USA chapter, told CBS News. “That is a very dangerous precedent to put on a Turning Point chapter.”
University officials said the fee is routine and that they have required the same of other student organizations that host similar guest speaker events on campus, regardless of the speaker or message.
The Leadership Institute, a Virginia-based nonprofit that trains conservative activists and leaders, ultimately paid the fee—which amounted to $148—on behalf of the chapter. The event proceeded as planned, according to posts on the chapter’s Instagram account.
Things have been bleak in higher education the last couple of years, and no doubt they will remain bleak for a while. But it recently became clear to me how we’ll know that we are turning the corner: it will be the moment when provincial governments start allowing significant rises in domestic tuition.
This became clear to me when I was having a discussion with a senior provincial official (in a province I shall not name) about tuition. I was arguing that with provincial budgets flat and declining international enrolment, domestic tuition needed to increase – and that there was plenty of room to do so given the affordability trends of the last couple of decades.
What affordability trends, you ask? I’m glad you asked. Affordability is a ratio where the cost of a good or service is the numerator and some measure of ability to pay is the denominator. So, let’s look at what it takes to pay average tuition and fees. Figure 1 shows average tuition as a percentage of the median income of couple families and lone-parent families aged 45-54. As you can see, for the average two-couple household, average tuition (which – recall last Wednesday’s blog – is an overestimate for most students) has never been more affordable in the twenty-first century. For lone-parent families, current levels of tuition are at a twenty-year low.
Figure 1: Average Undergraduate Tuition and Fees as a Percentage of Median Family Income, Couple Family and Lone-Parent Families aged 45-54, Canada, 2000-2024
Ah, you say, but that’s tuition as a function of parental ability-to-pay – what about students? Well, it’s basically the same story – calculated as a percentage of the average student wage, tuition has not been this cheap since the turn of the century, and in Ontario, it has dropped by 27% since 2017. And yes, the national story is to a large degree a function of what’s been going on in Ontario, but over the past decade or so, this ratio has been declining in all provinces except Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.
Figure 2: Number of Hours Worked at Median Hourly Income for Canadians Aged 15-24 Required to pay Average Undergraduate Tuition and Fees, Canada and Ontario, 1997-2024
And that’s before we even touch the issue of student aid, which as you all know is way up this century even after we take student population growth into account. In real dollars, we’ve gone from a $10B/year student aid system to a $20B/year system with the vast majority of growth coming on the non-repayable side, rather than from loans.
Figure 3: Total Student Financial Assistance by Type, Selected years, 1993-94 to 2023-2024, in Millions, in $2023
In fact, student aid expenditures are so high nowadays that across both universities and colleges we spend about $3 billion more in student aid than we take in from tuition fees. That’s NEGATIVE NET TUITION, PEOPLE.
Figure 4: Aggregate Non-Repayable Aid vs Aggregate Domestic Tuition fees, 2007-08 to 2023-24, in Billions, in $2023
So, yeah, affordability trends. They are much more favorable to students than most people think.
Anyway, the provincial official seemed a bit nonplussed by my reply: my sense is that they had never been briefed on the degree to which tuition increases have been thrown into reverse these past few years, and he certainly didn’t know about the huge increase in non-repayable aid over the past few decades. They didn’t push back on any of this evidence, BUT, they insisted, tuition fees weren’t going up because doing so ishard and it’sunpopular.
To which I responded: well, sure. But was raising tuition any easier or less unpopular in 1989 when the Quebec Liberal government more than doubled tuition? Than in the mid-90s when both the NDP and Conservative governments allowed tuition to rise? Than in 2001 when the BC Liberals allowed tuition to increase by 50%? This has been done before. There’s absolutely no reason it can’t be done again. The only thing it will take is the courage to put the requirements of institutions that actually build economies and societies ahead of the cheap, short-term sugar highs of chasing things like “affordability”.
Now, to be fair, I don’t for the moment see any provincial governments prepared to do this. If there is one thing that seems to unite provincial governments these days, it is an inability to make hard decisions. But this particular political moment won’t last forever. It might take a serious, long-term recession to knock it into various heads that no matter how much money we sink into them, natural resources and construction alone won’t run this economy. Eventually, we’re going to have to re-build the great college and university system we’re in the middle of trashing.
And we’ll know that moment has come when provincial governments agree that domestic tuition should rise again.
For almost a decade, the Higher Education Inquirer investigated right wing influencer Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point Empire. Kirk was groomed by Bill Montgomery (a surrogate for Richard Nixon in Florida for Nixon’s Reelection Campaign) and Steve Bannon when Bannon was at Breitbart. Kirk quickly learned the dirty tricks of the Nixon-Reagan era and the dog whistles of white supremacy and misogyny. He also quickly gained funding from right wing billionaire Foster Freiss.
In mid-2016, we communicated our concerns with Michael Vasquez at Politico, who later moved on to the Chronicle of Higher Education (CHE). CHE later reported that Kirk created a plan to win student elections using outside (illegal) money. We also contacted the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League who both listed TPUSA as a hate group.
Charlie Kirk, the young founder of Turning Point USA, a campus-focused conservative organization that rose to general prominence on the right, died Wednesday after he was shot during one of his group’s events at Utah Valley University in Orem.
Kirk, 31, leaves behind a wife and two children. He first rose to prominence in 2012 after creating Turning Point and speaking out about the need to reform higher education. In recent years, he became a close ally of Donald Trump.
Kirk died doing what he had become known and drawn protests for: visiting college campuses and sharing his right-wing views. He was at Utah Valley kicking off Turning Point’s The American Comeback Tour, which planned at least 10 stops on college campuses across the country. Some had urged the university to cancel his appearance. More than 3,000 people attended the event, Utah officials said.
Kirk, wearing a white shirt that said “freedom,” handed out red Make America Great Again hats and then sat under his signature “Prove Me Wrong” tent in the courtyard in the middle of campus to take questions from the audience. According to The Deseret News, Kirk had said there were “too many” mass shooters who were transgender and then fielded another question on the issue when he was shot.
“I want to be very clear this is a political assassination,” said Utah governor Spencer Cox at a press conference Wednesday evening.
Matthew Boedy, author of a forthcoming book on Kirk and head of the Georgia state conference of the American Association of University Professors, said Kirk’s death “could be compared to the second assassination [attempt] on President Trump. Assassination attempts—you would think they would unite us, but as we’ve seen, they have divided us even more so.”
Kirk’s group galvanized conservative activism on campuses nationwide and fueled criticisms of higher ed that are now shared by the White House and the Republicans who control Congress. As higher ed itself became a national political issue, Kirk transcended from a campus presence to a national conservative figure, speaking at the Republican National Conventions in 2020 and 2024, the Conservative Political Action Conference, and on other big stages. He had more than 5.4 million followers on X, where right-leaning profiles are prominent.
Turning Point’s website claims to have “a presence on over 3,500 high school and college campuses nationwide, over 250,000 student members, and over 450 full- and part-time staff all across the country.” And the group’s own events drew national political figures: Donald Trump Jr., Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Tulsi Gabbard, Kristi Noem and others attended the Student Action Summit in July, Times Higher Education reported. Among other things, Kirk said at the event in Tampa, Fla., that no foreigners should be allowed to own homes or get jobs before U.S. citizens.
“This is the greatest generational realignment since Woodstock,” Kirk said. “We have never seen a generation move so quickly and so fast, and you guys are making all the liberals confused.”
Kirk expanded on his views in several books, which include Campus Battlefield: How Conservatives Can WIN the Battle on Campus and Why It Matters and The College Scam: How America’s Universities Are Bankrupting and Brainwashing Away the Future of America’s Youth.
In a statement on X Wednesday, Turning Point confirmed his death and said, “May he be received into the merciful arms of our loving Savior, who suffered and died for Charlie.” Leading Republicans and Democrats issued statements mourning his passing, which President Trump announced himself on Truth Social.
“The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead,” Trump wrote. “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us.”
Trump ordered U.S. flags to be lowered to half-staff.
Former president Obama posted on X that “we don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon called Kirk “a friend and an invaluable adviser” in a social media post.
“He loved America with every part of his being,” she added. “My heart is broken for his family and friends who loved him, and for the millions of young Americans whom he inspired.”
California governor Gavin Newsom, a potential Democratic presidential candidate who had Kirk on his podcast earlier this year, posted, “The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile, and reprehensible. In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in EVERY form.”
Local, state and federal law enforcement are investigating the shooting.
Utah Valley closed campus and canceled classes until Sept. 14. Authorities searched the grounds for the shooter, and officials said in the evening that a person of interest was in custody.
Ellen Treanor, a university spokesperson, said Kirk was shot around 12:15 p.m. local time Wednesday, and that police believe the shot came from the Losee Center, about 200 yards away.
Treanor said Kirk’s private security took him immediately to a hospital, where he underwent surgery.
University police quickly arrested a person, who was later released when the officers determined he wasn’t the shooter, said Scott Trotter, another university spokesperson. The Utah governor’s office, the FBI and other agencies are coordinating with the university police department in investigating, Trotter said. (Utah law allows individuals to carry firearms on campuses.)
UVU officials said in a statement that they were “shocked and saddened” by Kirk’s death.
“We firmly believe that UVU is a place to share ideas and to debate openly and respectfully,” the statement said. “Any attempt to infringe on those rights has no place here.”
At the Wednesday press conference, Jeff Long, the UVU police chief, said that what happened was a “police chief’s nightmare.” Six officers were working the event alongside Kirk’s security team.
“You try to get your bases covered, and unfortunately, today, we didn’t,” he said. “Because of that, we have this tragic incident.”
Charlie Kirk was kicking off his “American Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University.
Photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images
Turning Point, headquartered in Phoenix, has been at the center of several controversies over the years. About a decade ago, it launched its Professor Watchlist, which has resulted in academics being the targets of vitriol and threats for their alleged views. Last year, two Turning Point workers admitted to charges from an October 2023 incident in which they followed and filmed a queer Arizona State University instructor on campus, with one of them eventually pushing the instructor face-first onto the concrete.
Boedy said Wednesday that Kirk was the most influential person who doesn’t work in the White House.
“He has made Turning Point into an indispensable organization for conservative causes,” he said. “He’s become the new face of Christian nationalism, which is a growing trend in America. And of course, he has, I would say, changed college campuses.”
He added that campus events like Wednesday’s were his “bread and butter.”
“He is very smart,” he said. “He was one of the pioneers of the ‘prove me wrong’ mantra.”
After months of high study permit refusal rates, stakeholders welcome a more successful second quarter of 2025.
But concerns remain about the overall volume of approvals – especially as students from key market India continue to struggle to secure study permits.
Meanwhile, approvals from Ghana surge over 200% compared to Q1 of 2025.
The IRCC data, compiled by BorderPass, showed that while Canadian study permit applications dipped in Q2 2025, the number of approvals increased by 4,450 – leading to a 10% increase in the overall approval rating.
“The encouraging sign is that June saw the highest approval rate of the year at 39%, which could point to a modest improvement in the second half of the year,” Jonathan Sherman, vice-president of sales & partnerships at BorderPass told The PIE News.
After record low approval ratings in Q1, stakeholders have welcomed the rise in approvals, though serious concerns remain about overall volumes.
“Just 31,580 permits were approved in the first half of 2025. IRCC’s published target for the year is about 300,000, which means at the current pace we will only reach around 20% of the goal unless there is a dramatic shift,” warned Sherman.
After Canada’s implementation of the study permit cap in 2024, the approval rate dropped from 67% in 2023 to 45% in 2024. So far in 2025, approvals for new study permits (excluding extensions) are tracking at 31%.
One of the most striking trends is India’s continued decline, with data showing study permit approvals falling another 7% in Q2 to just 20%, reflecting a “fundamental shift in how IRCC is assessing these applications”, said Sherman.
This stands in sharp contrast to the more than 80% approval rates for Indian students just a few years ago, “reflecting a fundamental shift in how IRCC is assessing these applications”, said Sherman.
The widening gap between universities and colleges also stood out in the data, a difference that Sherman said was “reshaping the international education market in Canada”.
Among the top 20 institutions by volume, university approvals have dropped from 63% in 2024 to 53% so far in 2025, but colleges have seen a steeper fall from 60% to 28%.
Colleges have felt the heaviest impact of federal policy changes, including the study permit cap and the new field of study restrictions for post-graduation work permits.
Despite a major win for the college sector in March this year when PGWP eligibility was expanded for degree students at colleges, these institutions have still been the hardest hit by the changes, with many of their programs no longer eligible for a work permit.
“That said, colleges that are focusing on programs with clear labour market outcomes such as health, technology, and skilled trades are showing better results,” noted Sherman.
“The institutions that carefully vet applicants for immigration quality and program alignment are also proving more resilient,” he advised.
At the current pace we will only reach around 20% of IRCC’s published target unless there is a dramatic shift
Jonathan Sherman, BorderPass
Alongside students from India, Iranian students also experienced volatility, with the country’s approval rating falling by more than 50% from Q1. In contrast, Ghana saw its approval rating surge by 225% on the previous quarter.
The approval rating for Chinese students – who make up Canada’s second largest international student cohort – saw stable growth, surpassing 65% approval, and South Korea remained a consistent top performer with approvals at more than 85%.
“Smaller markets like Vietnam, Nepal and Nigeria are also moving – some positively, some unpredictably – creating both new opportunities and risk. For many DLIs, this means rethinking region-based strategies in real time,” advised the BorderPass report.
As well as seeing variations across institution type and source market, a large number of IRCC officers were hired and trained in the first half of 2025, which Sherman said had “introduced some inconsistency in decision making as new processing are applied”.
“On this note, we are hearing that processing backlogs may get worse before they get better,” he warned.
Overall: “It is clear that IRCC is applying far greater scrutiny to new applications,” said Sherman, with the gap between high- and low-performing institutions becoming ever wider.
Specifically, by investing in application intelligence, thoroughly reviewing documents, confirming travel readiness and working with legally backed partners, some institutions have seen approval rates more than double the national average, according to Sherman.
