October 11, 2025
A proposed Florida bill would require state universities to rename certain roadways after the slain white nationalist, or risk losing state funding.
Florida’s Republican State Representative Kevin Steele, an outspoken supporter of slain white nationalist Charlie Kirk, recently filed legislation in the Florida Legislature, House Bill 113, which would require the state’s university boards to recognize Kirk by renaming roadways after him or risk losing state funding.
As WCTV reports, the bill specifically mentions Florida A&M University as one of four universities in Florida’s Big Bend area that would have to name streets after Kirk or risk losing funding if it is not completed within 90 days of the bill’s passage.
In effect, this proposal follows in the footsteps of Donald Trump’s attempts to control higher education through the use of discretionary reductions in funding for universities that run afoul of his directives on diversity, equity and inclusion or that do not address an alleged atmosphere of anti-Semitism to his liking.
According to the bill, it calls for Florida State University to redesignate Chieftan Way as Charlie James Kirk Road, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University to redesignate West Osceola Street (which no longer officially exists) as Charlie James Kirk Street, and Tallahassee State College to Redesignate Progress Drive as Charlie James Kirk Drive.
Although the bill still has several steps to go before it can officially become law, it has already gotten the attention of college students at the University of West Florida, many of whom noted that the bill flies in the face of the state’s political neutrality policy for its institutions of higher education.
“I feel like it’s silly because the fact that the state of Florida wants to have colleges neutral with their standing in politics and everything,” UWF senior Parker Shreeves told ABC 3. “I feel like it’s silly of how they want to push Charlie Kirk on the university because he was a very politically active person.”
Likewise, UWF senior Mea Brahier noted that “He (Kirk) had a very specific political agenda. And so this is a specific political agenda that they’re trying to put forth by naming roads after him.”
As the right, particularly in Florida, attempts to sanitize Kirk’s sordid legacy that includes numerous instances of anti-Black racism and attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, there are also pockets of resistance.
Earlier in October, in Boynton Beach, Commissioner Thomas Turkin’s idea for a memorial to honor Kirk was met by resounding opposition. The proposal was so unpopular that when Commissioner Woodrow Hay motioned to “drop all conversation now, and in the future, of memorializing Charlie Kirk,” it was met with raucous applause.
According to The Palm Beach Post, the crowd and the local NAACP branch took particular issue with the conflation of Kirk’s legacy with that of slain civil and human rights activist Martin Luther King Jr.
As Alfred Fields, president of the West Palm Beach NAACP branch, told the outlet, “We wanted to make sure that the legacy of Dr. King was not distorted by this person, whom I had no idea who he was until he was murdered. There’s no room for hatred, racism or bigotry here.”
Indeed, as Dedrick Straughn, the president of the South Palm Beach NAACP branch, noted, “(Kirk) became more famous in death than he did in life. If we didn’t know you while you were alive, why are we erecting any type of memorial for you? Your life’s work did not dictate this happening.”
Hay, for his part, echoed a portion of a now-viral sermon delivered by the Pastor of Washington, D.C.’s historic Alfred Street Baptist Church, Howard John-Wesley, that encapsulated how many Black Americans felt in the wake of the campaign led by white evangelicals and right-wing politicians to whitewash Kirk’s actual legacy after his death.
“What happened to Charlie Kirk was a disgusting act,” Hay said. “However, the way you die does not justify how you lived. Choosing not to create a public statue or memorial is not dishonoring his life. It is protecting the dignity, well-being and unity of all our residents.”
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