“It seems like the entire thing was meant to make me be very scared or kind of shut down from expressing these views, but in fact it’s done quite the opposite,” OSU student Joshua Wilson told Fox News Digital.
Wilson, a junior who serves as university chair of OSU’s Student Government Association (SGA), gave the speech at the SGA meeting on Sept. 10 — hours after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in Utah.
Wilson said he wanted to honor Kirk’s legacy while promoting peace on campus. In his brief remarks, he encouraged students to carry on Kirk’s message of free speech and condemned political violence.
He also wore a Turning Point USA hat that Kirk had given him during an April visit to campus. The hat displayed the number “47,” referencing President Donald Trump.
Wilson, who is also vice chair of the College Republicans and president of the Debate Club, said the speech was well received, with applause from his peers and messages of appreciation afterward.
But the following week, he said he was called into a meeting with his faculty adviser, Melisa Echols, who told him the hat violated student government’s nonpartisan rules and that some people could be “triggered” by it.
Echols said, “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,” according to audio first reported by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA).
Wilson told Echols he didn’t believe the hat was harmful or partisan, given that his speech focused on Kirk’s advocacy for campus dialogue.
According to Wilson, Echols rejected that explanation, telling him he needed to acknowledge her grievances “otherwise this year is going to be difficult for you.”
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“I viewed it as a veiled threat,” Wilson said. “She went from being very kind at the beginning of the meeting to very short and angry toward the end. So I knew nothing good was going to come of that ending statement.”
After the incident drew attention, Oklahoma State University Vice President of Student Affairs Brent Marsh released a statement reaffirming the school’s commitment to free expression. Marsh said the university’s position on freedom of speech “is unchanged and crystal clear: All OSU students have the right to speak their minds on all of our campuses.”
He continued that the Student Government Association “is a democratically elected body where students represent their peers, share their ideas, debate proposals and work toward solutions. That process only works when every voice can be heard without fear or restriction. Protecting free expression is fundamental to who we are as a university.”
Marsh added that “all staff charged with supporting student groups have received direct clarification about our policies and our unwavering commitment to free speech and our expectation that every student can fully express themselves.”
He added in a follow-up statement, “If any student believes their right to free expression has been infringed upon, threatened or restricted in any way, we encourage them to share those concerns directly with Student Affairs Division leadership and/or university leadership.”
Wilson said he believes the university wants the controversy to “go away” but he’s calling on administrators to take a firmer stand condemning what happened.
“I think OSU needs to make a statement at least saying, ‘Hey, this isn’t going to happen again, and we’re going to make sure it doesn’t happen again,’ whether it’s through reforming our code of conduct or investigations to make sure students don’t feel threatened by faculty regarding their freedom of speech,” he told Fox News Digital.