Erika Kirk urges conservative students not to back down in first school year since Charlie's assassination

Erika Kirk is urging conservative students not to back down as they return to college campuses for the first school year since her husband Charlie Kirk was assassinated, challenging them to carry forward the movement he founded in 2012.

Kirk, who took over leadership of Turning Point USA (TPUSA) following the fatal shooting of her 31-year-old husband at Utah Valley University on Sept.

10, 2025, posted a lengthy message on Instagram Wednesday evening directed primarily at students beginning the new academic year.

She warned that conservative and Christian students may encounter hostility at their schools but offered a stern message: Don't retreat from campus activism.

YOUNG CONSERVATIVES REVEAL WHAT’S TOP OF MIND AS GOP, DEMOCRATS BATTLE FOR 'HOPELESS' GEN Z VOTERS "Your table might get flipped," Kirk wrote.

"Someone might call you every name imaginable because you have a Turning Point USA sign sitting in front of you." "What are you going to do about it?" she continued.

"Are you going to stop tabling? Are you going to shut down your chapter? Are you going to decide it is easier to keep your head down and get through the semester? No.

You keep going." The CEO of the conservative nonprofit then invoked her husband's commitment to courage.

"Charlie committed himself to a life of courage," she wrote.

"I want to challenge you to do the same.

He'd often talk about how courage is doing the right thing even when you don't know how it's going to work out.

He would tell you that courage is being committed to the right course of action regardless of the cost associated with it." Erika Kirk also recalled how her husband deliberately traveled to college campuses where he encountered people who disagreed with him because he wanted debate rather than an audience that already shared his views.

WATCH: CHAOS ERUPTS AS LEFTISTS INTERRUPT CONSERVATIVE GROUP'S UCLA EVENT FEATURING DHS LAWYER "Charlie wanted the conversation; he wanted the debate, he wanted you to ask the hard questions and challenge him," she wrote.

"And he wanted you to learn how to defend what you believe instead of repeating something because somebody you follow online said it." "That is still who we are," she added.