Oklahoma State University reassigns advisor who reprimanded student for honoring Charlie Kirk

Oklahoma State University (OSU) reportedly reassigned a student government advisor and trained staff in the principles of free speech after a conservative student went viral for complaining that he was rebuked for delivering a tribute to the late TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk.

The public land-grant research university in Stillwater, Oklahoma, drew attention last fall after the popular X account Libs of TikTok highlighted the case of Joshua Wilson, a Christian and member of the school’s Student Government Association, according to Campus Reform.

Wilson’s situation was among the complaints reviewed by the legislatively created Oklahoma Free Speech Committee’s Complaints Task Force, which filed a report in June noting that OSU reassigned the role of student government advisor role to a new staff member.

“If OSU Admin made the remarks described in the complaint, such remarks would be troubling and potentially violative of the First Amendment,” the report said. “However, OSU’s actions to address the situation are notable. According to OSU, the employee at issue was removed from his or her position involving SGA, the university president apologized to the Complainant and the university’s legal department implemented additional free speech training.”

On Sept. 10, 2025, the day of Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University, Wilson gave a speech at a student government meeting, during which he honored Kirk as a father, husband and devout Christian who fostered campus dialogue during a prior visit to OSU.

EXCLUSIVE: @JoshuaW4145, a conservative Oklahoma State University student, spoke with us after he was reprimanded by his university for giving a speech honoring the death of Charlie Kirk and promoting free speech.

A faculty member allegedly told him that his speech was… https://t.co/Xpsh2rpdjipic.twitter.com/Ql7leDPFrk

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) October 13, 2025

While wearing a TPUSA hat he received from Kirk while volunteering at one of his on-campus events at OSU months earlier, Wilson called for an end to political violence while promoting civil discourse and debate, according to a report of the incident from the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA).

“[Kirk] lived with the hope that debate could spark conversation in a country that, for too many years, had lost that ability,” Wilson said in his brief speech.

The fact that Wilson’s hat depicted the numbers 45 and 47 in reference to President Donald Trump reportedly prompted OSU’s Melisa Echols to reprimand him a week later, accusing him of wearing a hat that could “trigger” some students, according to a recording of the exchange.

“As a person who doesn’t look like you and has not had the same lived experience as you, I have family who don’t look like you who are triggered — and I will be very candid with you — who are triggered by those hats and by that side,” Echols told Wilson, who is of Cherokee ethnicity.

Echols went on to challenge Wilson to interact with people who don’t look like him, and to “have open conversations with anyone that has a different lived experience and see what, if anything, that might do for someone else, aside from someone who is politically aligned the same as you.”

“Ask yourself: Have you had those levels of discourse with people that don’t look like you, have not had the same lived experiences as you?” Echols said. “And what does — or did, and even do — wearing something like that or even saying something like that, how did that impact them?”

Echols went on to scold Wilson for what she deemed were his inadequate responses to her rebuke, saying, “‘But’ cannot be the end of every statement. That’s not a learned lesson.”

“It cannot just be, ‘yes, but’ — cannot be every response that you give me. Otherwise, this year is going to be difficult for you,” she added, which Wilson said he took as a “veiled threat.”

Echols also reportedly claimed that Wilson’s TPUSA hat violated supposed SGA rules against partisanship, though OSU said in a statement to OCPA at the time that the school’s SGA “has no official policies to restrict partisan expression, and the organization has not enacted or enforced such a policy.”

The Oklahoma Free Speech Committee’s Complaints Task Force report also said that OSU had expanded free speech training for relevant staff, according to Oklahoma Voice. OSU President Jim Hess attended SGA meetings in November to reaffirm the university’s commitment to free expression.

Many news stories emerged in the wake of Kirk’s assassination about professional educators drawing backlash for their responses to the conservative activist’s death. Some who were terminated ended up securing hefty settlements after taking legal action against their former employers.