Higher Education

Violent threats against conservatives growing at OU

October 9, 2025

Ray Carter

The challenge of left-wing terrorist threats has reared its ugly head at the University of Oklahoma, where a planned pro-Israel speaking event was canceled due to death threats.

The cancellation occurred even as a recent survey showed more than four in 10 OU students support violence to prevent speech in some circumstances.

OU leadership continues to draw criticism for what critics view as a lackluster-to-nonexistent response to anti-speech extremism by left-wing activists.

“The status quo is changing,” officials with the OU chapter of Turning Point USA declared in a statement to the OU community. “It has come to our attention that political violence is becoming the new normal on our University’s campus.”

Mary S. Karp was scheduled to visit OU on Oct. 7 to speak on the topic, “Israel’s war on Hamas is 100% justified.”

Karp is the director of Christian Engagement at Stand With Us, a nationwide organization that supports Israel, and was set to appear at OU’s Norman campus as part of an event held by the OU chapter of Turning Point USA.

But death threats quickly overwhelmed the event.

Karp discussed the cancellation in a short video posted to Instagram.

“I really wanted to go, was really looking forward to it,” Karp said. “I really want to speak out for Israel right now, but unfortunately, there were too many threats, too many death threats made. People told me on the Internet that they hope I get ‘Charlie Kirked.’ We all know that means assassinated. As much as we planned and brought in police and all sorts of law enforcement and everything, in the end it’s just not safe enough, can’t totally guarantee safety for me, for the students.”

“Ever since we made the announcement that Mary would be speaking on our campus, she has received death threats from many people who believe political violence is justified so long as the person being threatened has different beliefs,” OU Turning Point officials said in their statement.

OU Turning Point faculty advisor Gary Barksdale told the Oklahoma City FOX affiliate that the threats against Karp are part of a growing pattern.

Barksdale said violent emails were previously sent when James Lindsay, an academic critic of Critical Race Theory and similar Marxist-derived worldviews, was invited to OU. And when OU students invited Riley Gaines, a former collegiate women’s swimmer and vocal opponent of allowing males to compete in women’s sports as “transgender women,” Barksdale told Fox 25 that one OU student was assaulted while promoting the event.

A recent survey, conducted by College Pulse and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), found 42 percent of student respondents at the University of Oklahoma said using violence to stop someone from speaking on campus is acceptable, at least in rare cases. That was well above the national average.

Recent national polling by YouGov found one in four “very liberal” respondents said political violence can be justified, compared to only 3 percent of “very conservative” voters.

The FIRE survey found there are roughly 1.84 liberal students for every one conservative student at OU.

On April 7, the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) issued a brief that warned, “A broader ‘assassination culture’ appears to be emerging within segments of the U.S. public on the extreme left.”

NCRI found that support for assassination was tethered to those who hold “a broader worldview in which violence is seen as a legitimate political response—not just a reaction to individual figures.” NCRI reported that left-wing authoritarianism was central to that belief system, saying left-wing authoritarianism is “characterized by moral absolutism, punitive attitudes toward ideological opponents, and a willingness to use coercion for progressive aims.”

In their letter to the campus community, officials with OU Turning Point noted the FIRE survey and criticized OU President Joseph Harroz, Jr.

“Ever since the murder of Charlie Kirk, OU’s president Joseph Harroz has yet to make a public statement about Kirk’s passing or condemning such disgusting ideology that has become normal across college campuses on a national level,” the OU Turning Point statement said. “Harroz has yet to explain why it is okay for our campus to be unsafe for conservative speakers to have discussions with those who oppose their views.”

Harroz’s muted response to the Kirk assassination contrasts sharply with his prior promotion of various left-wing political causes, and has drawn criticism from alumni.

While death threats forced the cancellation of Karp’s planned pro-Isreal speech at OU on Oct. 7, an event held the same day by OU Students for Justice in Palestine and the Muslim Student Association, which promoted the opposite viewpoint, occurred without similar threats.

As part of that event, participants put up signs containing pictures of each member of the OU Board of Regents, declaring each of them to be “wanted for GENOCIDE” and to be members of the “Board of Butchers.”

OU Students for Justice in Palestine has called on OU to divest from any company even indirectly tied to Isreal’s war with Hamas in Gaza.

Some of the messages displayed at the OU Students for Justice in Palestine event drew criticism from U.S. Sen. James Lankford, R-Oklahoma City.

“It’s heartbreaking and extremely troubling to see antisemitic messages displayed on the University of Oklahoma campus on the eve of the anniversary of the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust,” Lankford wrote on X. “Every student should feel safe on campus and not be faced with discrimination.”

Taken as a whole, the environment at OU is considered not only hostile, but potentially dangerous for many students, according to critics.

The parent of one OU student, granted anonymity due to concerns about potential threats of violence, said such incidents are frightening her daughter and other conservative students at OU. As a result, the parent said some conservative students at OU now self-censor, fearing that if they publicly identify as a conservative, they “might be on someone’s target list.”

In her video, Karp noted the threats made against her indicate that endorsement of political violence on college campuses has become widespread.

“I’m not even somebody who’s, like, well known,” Karp said. “It’s literally just because it’s a Turning Point chapter and we’re talking about Israel. What a sad state of affairs.”

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