Charlie Kirk Threatens Lawsuit Over Kyle Rittenhouse Student Confrontation

Political activist Charlie Kirk has threatened a lawsuit after protesters confronted Kyle Rittenhouse during an appearance at the University of Memphis on Wednesday.

Rittenhouse was invited by the college's Turning Point USA chapter to speak at the campus. However, the event was met with backlash from a number of students who objected to Rittenhouse's presence.

The 21-year-old departed the stage after audience members questioned him about comments made by Kirk, the founder and president of Turning Point USA, a youth organization that says it aims to "restore traditional American values like patriotism, respect for life, liberty, family, and fiscal responsibility." Rittenhouse has said he remained on stage for his scheduled time.

The incident has highlighted what some activists say is growing censorship on college campuses. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, since 2014 students have increasingly called for banning speakers for making what they consider offensive or hateful remarks.

Now Kirk has said he will be asking for an investigation into the incident involving Rittenhouse.

Newsweek contacted Turning Point USA by email and via its website and emailed the University of Memphis for comment Friday.

"I will be asking TN lawmakers to investigate if the University of Memphis colluded with local protesters to sabotage last night's TPUSA event with Kyle Rittenhouse. We may also file our own lawsuit on viewpoint discrimination. Stay tuned!" he posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday.

Alongside this caption, Kirk shared a video of him being interviewed by Real America's Voice about the incident.

"The way that campus speech was supposed to be administered is from viewpoint neutrality," he said. "Tax payer-funded universities, especially state universities, they're not allowed to say 'You know we really don't like Kyle Rittenhouse, we don't like Turning Point, we're going to help BLM [Black Lives Matter] to compromise the ticketing system and give them a leg up.' It's not, it's not, legal, you can't do that.

"It's interesting, I think the university thought they could get away with it but more importantly, they are terrified of these students. They are terrified of the activists on campus and we see this so often."

Kirk also said protesters shouldn't be given any special treatment, before calling Memphis a "war zone."

He added: "They had 300 some plus murders last year, that is extraordinary…almost 400 murders and the biggest concern is that an American citizen patriot who is a decent person comes to speak and field questions on campus."

Elsewhere in the interview, Kirk claimed that protesters wanted to use Rittenhouse in a "show trial."

In video footage shared on X, formerly Twitter, Rittenhouse was shown standing onstage at the University of Memphis as a group of students confronted him about statements that Kirk had made in the past.

Kirk has been criticized by opponents for statements such as that he'd question the credentials of Black airline pilots. Of this, he said it was "not who I am, that's not what I believe," but that he was being made to react that way because he felt policies adopted by major companies regarding ethnic minorities meant less-qualified people were being given jobs with significant responsibility, including airline pilots.

One clip of Wednesday's event shared on X shows Rittenhouse addressing students while some taunt him from their seats. Since being posted online, the footage has received 6.8 million views.

He was jeered off stage by activists and other videos show Rittenhouse being chased from the college by protesters after leaving the venue.

However, Rittenhouse has denied that he was forced off stage by protesters.

He told Newsweek in a statement: "The event was scheduled for 30 minutes. I spoke for 30 minutes, and then my security team told the coordinator that we were leaving after the question, and we left. I stayed for the scheduled time."

In August 2020, when he was 17 years old, Rittenhouse shot and killed two men—Joseph Rosenbaum, 36, and Anthony Huber, 26, as well as injuring 26-year-old Gaige Grosskreutz—at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

He said the three shootings, carried out with a semi-automatic AR-15-style firearm, were in self-defense. The BLM protest where the shootings took place was held after Jacob Blake, a Black man, was left paralyzed from the waist down after he was shot by a white police officer.

Rittenhouse was acquitted in November 2021 on charges of first-degree intentional homicide, attempted first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, and two charges of first-degree recklessly endangering safety. Rittenhouse later said he supported the BLM movement, explaining that he was at the demonstration to "protect businesses and provide medical assistance."