AP Photo/Phil Sears
A Republican Florida state representative has filed a bill that would require all the colleges and universities in the state to rename specific roads in the hearts of their campuses after Charlie Kirk — under the threat of withholding state funding if they do not comply.
The 31-year-old Turning Point USA founder was speaking at an event at Utah Valley University on September 10 when he was fatally shot. Tyler Robinson, 22, has been arrested for Kirk’s murder and is facing seven charges, including the capital felony of aggravated murder.
In the wake of Kirk’s death, various proposals have been made to rename roads or erect other memorials to him. Some of these have already happened, such as a road in Lake County, Florida that was renamed the Charlie Kirk Memorial Highway after a contentious county commission meeting last month.
House Bill 113 was filed by State Rep. Kevin Steele, a Republican who represents a district in Dade City, about 40 miles northeast of Tampa. Steele made news in January 2024 for backing a bill that rolled back protections of Florida’s child labor laws, saying in a committee hearing that it would be good for young people to “have them working full-time.” That bill passed, and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed it into law in March 2024.
The text of the bill requires every university, college, and community college in Florida to rename a road or portion of a road after “Charles James Kirk,” and specifically lists which road each educational institution is expected to rename.
Steele’s bill comes with a powerful threat: if passed, “[s]tate funds shall be withheld from any state university or Florida College System institution whose board of trustees fails to redesignate the roadway or portion of a roadway listed” in the bill “within 90 days after the effective date of this act.”
If the bill is passed, the effective date is immediately upon becoming law. This is a departure from many Florida legislative bills that take effect at a late date, often July 1 of the year of that legislative session, indicating Steele intends this bill to be treated as an urgency matter.
A brief review of the list of roads named in the bill shows it is targeting some of the major central roadways on Florida’s college campuses.
Stadium Road at the University of Florida is where both the football stadium and basketball arena are located, along with a major student dining facility, classroom buildings, and several dorms (including where I lived my freshman year). Chieftain Way at Florida State University similarly connects to the Seminoles’ football stadium, baseball stadium, libraries, chemistry lab buildings, and so on. Valencia College Drive is a main thoroughfare on the Orlando community college’s West Campus, running past all the main campus buildings and the library. At the University of Central Florida, Gemini Boulevard forms a circle around the main core of campus.
Many of the other roads targeted by HB 113 are the roads named after the colleges themselves — UNF Drive at the University of North Florida, FGCU Boulevard at Florida Gulf Coast University, for example — or are the “College Drive,” “Campus Drive,” or “University Avenue” of those various campuses, again indicating the bill is seeking to rename roads at the heart of these campuses.
State Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, posted about HB 113 on her Instagram page, writing that the bill was “clearly designed to illicit intense reactions from all sides but it does reinforce the importance of getting involved in your local & state government,” and urged her constituents to stay involved as the legislature’s committee weeks kicked off this week and through the legislative session starting next January.
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