As details began to surface about Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old suspect in the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, MAGA partisans online scapegoated the higher education system, which they claimed must have radicalized the alleged gunman.
Robinson was enrolled in an electrical apprenticeship through Dixie Technical College, and attended Utah State University for a single semester in 2021, according to the Utah System of Higher Education.
Nonetheless, some far-right influencers on Friday defaulted to the right-wing trope that universities are hotbeds of “woke” indoctrination.
Upon reports of Robinson’s connection to Utah State, for example, some users began posting purported evidence of left-wing influence at the school he attended only briefly—and which notably has a reputation for being among the most conservative in the country, per numerous online rankings.
“I’d like to know the names of the professors who radicalized this young man,” posted right-wing author Dinesh D’Souza on X. “I wonder if they too could be charged with abetting this political assassination.”
“Higher ed is a scam,” tweeted Katie Miller, a prominent MAGA figure and wife of Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, in response to a post alleging Robinson was “brainwashed” at college.
“From a regular middle class family. Good grades. Went off to college. Became an extremist Antifa kiIIer,” wrote a popular right-wing X account with the display name “End Wokeness.”
“Tyler Robinson didn’t just ‘snap.’ He was manufactured,” a user with another sizable MAGA account posted. “Classrooms became factories. Professors became engineers. And out the other side comes another radical, programmed to hate.”
Pro-Trump commentator Joey Mannarino asserted that Robinson “was radicalized at college because colleges are liberal indoctrination centers.”
The baseless claims recall how, in the immediate wake of Wednesday’s shooting, even before anything was known about the suspected gunman—and despite widespread Democratic condemnations—MAGA Republicans sought to blame the entire left for Kirk’s death.
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