Higher Education

OSU scandal highlights unequal treatment of conservatives

October 27, 2025

Jonathan Small

Oklahoma State University finds itself at the center of a national controversy over students’ free-speech rights because a university employee apparently could not resist the temptation to abuse her authority.

Josh Wilson, an OSU junior, was involved in student government and the debate society, and also volunteered with Turning Point USA, the organization founded by free-speech activist Charlie Kirk, when Kirk visited Stillwater in April.

When Kirk was assassinated on Sept. 10, the same day as a student government meeting, Wilson took a few moments to speak to fellow students, calling on individuals of all beliefs to remember that “true progress begins with dialogue.”

Within a week, the coordinator of student government affairs programs, Melisa Echols, called Wilson in for a meeting in which she reprimanded him for supposedly bringing partisan politics into student government because he wore a Turning Point hat during his speech that referenced Trump. (Wilson’s speech did not endorse any candidate or political party.)

In her comments, recorded by Wilson and first reported by OCPA, Echols claimed many people are “triggered by those hats and by that side” of the political debate.

When Wilson politely argued that the context of the speech was not partisan, Echols snapped, “It cannot just be, ‘yes, but’—cannot be every response that you give me. Otherwise, this year is going to be difficult for you.”

To their credit, OSU officials quickly distanced themselves from Echols, saying the student government association “has no official policies to restrict partisan expression,” and saying that “clarification regarding SGA policies has been provided to appropriate university staff.”

Even so, the incident is a reminder that too many officials at state colleges and universities—even in Oklahoma, even at an “ag school”—are willing to use their positions to chill conservative speech.

Censorship seldom runs the other way at state universities. How often has a left-wing student faced similar efforts to chill his or her speech?

When the University of Oklahoma chapter of Turning Point USA tried to host a pro-Israel speaker on campus on Oct. 7, the event had to be canceled because the speaker received so many death threats.

However, an event held on the same day by OU Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Student Association, which promoted the opposing viewpoint, occurred without similar threats. And the Palestine event included messages that U.S. Sen. James Lankford publicly criticized as antisemitic.

Colleges cannot continue to demand taxpayer funding from 100 percent of the population while treating conservatives as second-class citizens. Nationally, roughly half the population voted Republican in the 2024 presidential race, and 66 percent of Oklahomans. College officials don’t have to love conservatives, but they should not act as though conservatives’ financial support can be taken for granted.