An Oklahoma State University (OSU) student leader who was reprimanded by a school coordinator for wearing a hat on the day Charlie Kirk was assassinated — a hat given to him by Kirk himself — says the incident has only made him more committed to free speech.
Joshua Wilson, was wearing the Turning Point USA hat that displayed the number “47” on the front when he gave a heartfelt speech honoring Kirk to his student government group on September 10 in the moments after Kirk’s assassination.
A week later he was called on the carpet by an OSU coordinator.
An Oklahoma conservative think tank went public with the incident, even posting a a recording of a portion of the reprimand on YouTube:
“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,” Wilson told Fox News Digital.
The university junior also posted on X this week, echoing Kirk’s philosophy and writing, “Dialogue breeds progress.”
Wilson is university chair of OSU’s Student Government Association (SGA). After Kirk was assassinated, Wilson took a few moments during SGA’s meeting to honor Kirk, encouraging students to carry the slain organizer’s message of free speech.
But a week later, OSU’s coordinator of student government programs, Melisa Echols, summoned Wilson and claimed she has family members who felt “triggered” by the speech because Wilson was wearing the Turning Point USA hat that featured numeric references to President Donald Trump.
Conservative think tank the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA) first reported the encounter on its website:
The hat, which Kirk had given to Wilson in April, contained the numbers 45 and 47, a reference to President Donald Trump. Echols claimed wearing the hat made Wilson’s speech a partisan event in violation of student-government rules, told Wilson he should talk to “people that don’t look like you” despite Wilson being a member of a racial minority, and warned him that this year “is going to be difficult for you” if he rejected her claim that he acted in a partisan manner.
Wilson received the hat during Kirk’s spring visit to the Oklahoma campus. He was a Turning Point volunteer during the event.
Wilson is also vice chair of the College Republicans and president of the Debate Club. He recalled that his short speech was well received, with applause from his peers and messages of appreciation afterward.
Wilson said he told Echols he didn’t believe the hat was harmful. But the coordinator’s comment that he needed to acknowledge her grievances “otherwise this year is going to be difficult for you” seemed like a threat, Wilson said.
“I viewed it as a veiled threat,” Wilson told Fox News Digital. “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.”
Wilson told the the OCPA that he reminded Echols he has Cherokee heritage and regularly interacts with people from diverse backgrounds.
“I don’t like to pull that card,” he said, “but if you’re going to pull that card on me, I might as well.”
After the controversy went public, the OSU administration issued a statement emphasizing a commitment to free expression and saying the student government group has no “official policy” that restricted “partisan expression.”
“The university is committed to protecting, promoting and facilitating free expression for all students, regardless of their views, and clarification regarding SGA policies has been provided to appropriate university staff,” a spokesman told the New York Post.
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 and institute new rules promoting free speech.
Wilson said he has received wide support during the controversy, including from people online as well as state legislators. He said the incident has inspired some conservative students to set up tables and hold political conversations on campus.
“I’m not backing down. Ronald Reagan said that freedom is just one generation away from extinction… So if we don’t stand up for our rights, nobody will,” he said. “And I think that Oklahomans, like myself and others, aren’t going to back down — we’re just going to make our voices more heard.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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