Higher Education

OSU controversy doesn’t shock former students

October 14, 2025

Ray Carter

Oklahoma State University has received national attention following an incident in which OSU’s coordinator of student government affairs programs reprimanded a student for discussing the assassination of activist Charlie Kirk.

Former students are not shocked that the controversy has occurred, saying it fits with a longstanding pattern in the OSU student government since Melisa Echols became the coordinator.

“Melisa Echols regularly demonstrated that conservative ideology was not welcome in the SGA at Oklahoma State,” said former OSU student Ashley Peterson, who was elected student body president in 2023. “I regularly felt criticized and sidelined because of my conservative views, even during my time as the student body president. It is not at all surprising to me that she tried to reprimand a student for speaking about Charlie Kirk’s assassination and wearing apparel connected to Turning Point USA.”

Josh Wilson, a junior at Oklahoma State University, has been involved in the OSU student government and the debate society and volunteered with Turning Point USA, the organization founded by Kirk.

When Kirk was assassinated on Sept. 10, the same day as a student-government meeting, Wilson took a few moments to mourn Kirk’s loss, declaring that “true progress begins with dialogue.”

The following week, Echols verbally reprimanded Wilson for wearing a Turning Point USA hat that referenced President Trump during his remarks, claiming students could be “triggered” by the hat and warning Wilson that “this year is going to be difficult for you” if he did not abide by her wishes.

Officials at OSU subsequently issued a statement declaring that the OSU Student Government Association “has no official policies to restrict partisan expression” and that “clarification regarding SGA policies has been provided to appropriate university staff.”

Peterson said she believes Echols tried to prevent her from becoming student body president in 2023 because Peterson was also president of College Republicans at that time.

Peterson had received 1,209 student votes, or 66 percent of those cast. Even so, an effort was made to disqualify her and prevent her from serving as president based on minor technicalities.

“We didn’t turn in a budget item on time, but it was due to the school’s Wi-Fi having an issue,” Peterson said.

Peterson said Echols “pressured” student-government officials “to interpret it as we were disqualified” because of the reporting delay. That decision was later overturned when Peterson appealed to the student government court.

Echols has served as coordinator of student government affairs programs since September 2017.

Peterson noted she was not the only person to win votes for student president only to be threatened with disqualification during Echols’ tenure.

She noted a similar incident occurred in 2022, when the winning candidate was disqualified for turning in a budget document roughly one hour late on election day. In 2019, the candidate receiving the most votes in the first round of voting was barred from campaigning in a runoff election, in part because the candidate used green balloons for publicity rather than stickers or buttons.

When Peterson was informed she might be disqualified from serving as president, she said it marked the fifth time in 11 years that the Student Government Association had taken that stance while Echols was advisor.

Amanda Botts, a former OSU student who participated in student government in the 2017-to-2018 period, said she witnessed similar problems.

During that period, one of Botts’ friends was the head of the Turning Point USA chapter at OSU, which had requested that the student-government association make Turning Point a recognized student association on campus. That recognition allows student groups to engage in publicity efforts on campus.

Approval of student groups was “usually just a unanimous-consent vote,” but that wasn’t the case when Turning Point USA’s application was considered, Botts said. Instead, she said student-government officials peppered Turning Point representatives with “crazy questions” at length, even though Turning Point was anything but radical.

“The things that they believe in are just traditional, conservative Christian values,” said Botts, who described herself as relatively liberal during her college years.

Turning Point’s application was initially rejected based on alleged technical problems with the group’s application, Botts recalled, even though those problems could have been resolved.

“They were trying to basically blame it on a clerical error, when in reality it was just that they didn’t want to make an amendment to fix the issue, and they didn’t want to let the club on campus,” Botts said.

Botts believes Echols’ influence was partly to blame, recalling that the general spirit of student government during that time was often oppressive.

“Everything was ‘racist,’” Botts said.

Botts recalled that Mauree Turner, then an OSU student involved in student government, “was the worst” about denouncing other students or proposals as a form of racism or similar oppression. Unlike Wilson, Botts said Turner appeared to enjoy ready support from Echols.

Botts noted that Turner “was super-tight with Melisa and all of the administrators.”

Tuner, D-Oklahoma City, later served as a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives. Turner identified as a “nonbinary” or “gender-nonconforming” Muslim who asked to be referred to with they/their pronouns rather than she/her.

During her time in office, Turner declared that legislation prohibiting doctors from performing sex-change surgeries on children represented “extremist bigotry,” and opposed legislation to increase the penalties on individuals who pay prostitutes for sex,  saying that “folks have to resort to economic streams where some of us might not agree with it.”

Turner also opposed legislation requiring Oklahoma schools to teach students about the civil rights movement from 1954 to 1968, including principles that informed Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership, saying the legislation would “boil down the civil rights movement to a set of principles one author attributes to one palatable Black man.” Turner also said legislation preventing men from accessing women’s bathrooms was comparable to Jim Crow laws that mandated racial segregation.

In response to a request for comment, Oklahoma State University issued the following statement: “Freedom of speech is an absolute right. Every OSU student has the constitutional right to speak their mind, express their views, and wear what they choose without fear of reprimand, restriction, or retribution. This is not negotiable, and it will not be compromised.

“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,” the OSU statement continued. 

“Our students’ voices matter and their rights will be protected. We expect every student to be afforded the opportunity to participate fully in our democratic student government without restriction or intimidation and have directly addressed those expectations with SGA support staff,” the OSU statement concluded.

Peterson believes that Echols’ tenure has not lived up to OSU’s professed commitment to students’ free-speech rights.

“She has hindered many, many students, and altered their life path,” Peterson said, “because she’s made leadership so horrible for them.”

[For more stories about higher education in Oklahoma, visit AimHigherOK.com.]