People visit the courtyard where Charlie Kirk was hosting an event when he was killed at Utah Valley University in Orem on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
A Utah lawmaker says he’s bringing back a proposal that would require public colleges to conduct a campus safety assessment after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University.
“Assessments need to be done,” said Rep. Ryan Wilcox, an Ogden Republican and chair of Utah’s school security task force. “Everyone understands that now.”
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K-12 schools already must conduct similar reviews under a bigger 2024 school safety law bringing armed guardians into schools and assigning a statewide security chief. In the 2025 Legislature, Wilcox proposed requiring the assessments of colleges, too, but the state Senate rejected that component.
Wilcox told Utah News Dispatch Monday he’s spoken with most of Utah’s college presidents, and many have already ordered security assessments after Kirk’s assassination. But he said a state law is needed to make sure they keep up that scrutiny for years to come.
Wilcox declined to give details on the plan, but he’ll be teaming up with a new higher education task force that’s still being assembled and will focus on campus security.
The reviews are required every three years in Utah’s K-12 system, but Wilcox said he’s not certain whether colleges would follow the same schedule.
At UVU, Kirk was killed Sept. 10 while answering a question just minutes into his speaking event in a courtyard. The sound of a single shot sent his audience running for cover and triggered a manhunt for the suspected shooter that lasted almost a day and a half.
The college’s police department came under a microscope in the days that followed. Experts criticized the light security for the event, staffed with six UVU officers, and without assistance from deputies from the Utah County Sheriff’s Office.
Kirk was also scheduled to speak at Utah State University just three three weeks later, and the college held an event with other speakers in Kirk’s place, including Utah Gov. Spencer Cox.
For that event, USU asked for help from nearby police departments and other Utah colleges. The University of Utah and Weber State University “were both able to provide some resources to them to help out,” said Keith Squires, chief safety officer at the University of Utah.
Squires made the comment during a regular meeting of the school safety task force Monday at the state Capitol. The group didn’t talk about UVU’s security plan, but did discuss whether the campus police throughout the states have the resources they need.
In response to a question from Wilcox about whether his department is staffed, Squires said the University of Utah has made changes after Kirk’s shooting.
“We all know that tragedy strikes, sometimes resources are made available, and the university’s allowed me to be able to put some things in place after assessing needs that I feel very good about,” Squires said, without elaborating.
Wilcox said colleges should work with the wider community to keep large events safe, but local police departments and sheriffs can only help so much without stretching themselves too thin.
“This is the new reality: We do not have the resources that we need to pull that off consistently,” Wilcox said. “At some point, we’ve got to build that into the structure, into the plan, into the priority list, to make sure that that’s taken care of.”
