WEST LAFAYETTE, IN — Krach Lawn was just about as packed as it could be, save the first week of freshman orientation.
But hundreds of students Thursday afternoon didn’t come to jump in bouncy houses or engage in time-tested Purdue traditions. Some came in “Make America Great Again” hats or with signs of protest as firebrand conservative commentator Charlie Kirk took over the eastern tip of the lawn.
“Hey Purdue!” Kirk said as he walked under his tent with the words “PROVE ME WRONG” printed onto the hanging section of the tarp. “We have a much bigger crowd than we would’ve had at IU.”
The crowd erupts in applause, almost immediately followed by the ever iconic chant: “IU sucks!”
But though Kirk spoke for three hours, most struggled to hear him speak, or even see him at all, with the way the venue was set up.
Coming to Purdue
Kirk’s “American Comeback Tour” stops at universities across the country, and students debate the commentator.
A Purdue spokesperson told the Journal & Courier last week that the event was student-run, so he did not advise whether the university would employ additional security measures. Still, Purdue University and West Lafayette police departments had quite a heavy presence at the event. About 15 Purdue police officers surrounded and were interspersed on the lawn, Purdue Police Capt. Song Kang said.
Purdue student Keagan Landrum, 21, was one of the students on the lawn Thursday. Before Kirk came out to speak, Landrum said having a speaker of this magnitude on campus is a rarity.
“This stuff doesn’t ever happen, especially at Purdue,” he said. “It’s kind of cool to see a public forum.”
Treven Mason, a 24-year-old student in computer integration technologies, wore a red suit, MAGA hat and dress shoes to Krach lawn to “represent.” But despite his appearance, he said he isn’t a Kirk fan.
“I’m not honestly a big fan of Charlie Kirk, actually,” Mason said. “I’m here to see what he has to say. He represents this group on campus that, you know, is pushing mediocre conservative values.”
Those values, Mason said, are ideas like “taxation is theft,” or being antisocialist. When asked where he stands politically, he said he identifies as a Roman Catholic.
Despite the event being marketed as Q&A in nature, according to what a spokesperson for Turning Point USA’s Purdue chapter told the Journal & Courier through social media messages last week, Mason said he doubted how genuine the Q&A was.
“I think that a lot of people who are gonna be asking questions are probably placed there,” he said. “Charlie Kirk has not had a good history with dealing with people’s questions.”
Despite Mason’s criticisms, several organizers from the event went out into the protest to grab people who didn’t agree with Kirk to ask him questions.
“This isn’t an event for people to say how much they like Charlie Kirk, obviously,” Grayson Wells, an 18-year-old volunteer from the Indianapolis area, said. “We would rather have disagreements and keep the conversation flowing, so we’re trying to get the people who disagree to the mics so they can make their case.”
And save the protesters chanting phrases — including a notable one saying, “Racist, sexist piece of shit, Charlie Kirk can eat a d—” — several Purdue students said that regardless of the political divide, it is important to allow speakers like Kirk on campus.
“It’s kind of the beauty of the First Amendment,” said Patrick McDermott, a 19-year-old student who isn’t a fan of Kirk. “They’re allowed to come out here. Anyone on the left is allowed to do it as well.”
‘I can’t hear at all’
A speaker is held out of a window playing loud noises Thursday, April 10, 2025, during the Charlie Kirk speaking event at Krach Lawn on Purdue’s campus in West Lafayette, Ind.
But though students packed the lawn to hear Kirk speak, if you weren’t close to tents, you had little chance to see or hear the speaker.
John Miller, a 25-year-old volunteer for the American Comeback Tour, said he wasn’t happy with the setup.
“I don’t like the way they staged this because it’s all the way up there,” Miller said, looking toward the nearby Winifred Parker Residence Hall. “You can’t hear the guy … They messed up where they put the tent.”
Miller added that the Purdue crowd wasn’t much compared to the events at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Illinois State University, his most recent tour stops.
“There’s a lot of people here, I can’t really count the amount of people,” he said. “I’d say Illinois had a way bigger crowd, honestly.”
Brothers Nishaan and Ishaan Agrawal, Purdue sophomores, said they had a hard time hearing as well.
“I couldn’t really hear much yet,” Nishaan said. “I’ve seen his stuff online and I wanted to see what it would be like in person.”
So did Karolyn Pinero, a 21-year-old senior in pharmaceutical sciences, who said, “I can’t hear at all.”
Back and forth with protesters
A person stands on another’s shoulder and yells at protesters Thursday, April 10, 2025, during the Charlie Kirk speaking event at Krach Lawn on Purdue’s campus in West Lafayette, Ind.
And if onlookers interested in Kirk couldn’t hear him speak, the chants of protesters coming from the middle of the lawn made it that much harder.
Several people wearing MAGA hats walked up to protesters and posed with their signs as they chanted. Tensions rose as protesters and supporters argued back and forth, all accompanied by the chorus of jeers directed toward the front of the lawn.
One Journal & Courier photograph shows a person using a transgender flag to hold back a man taking a selfie of the protesting crowd behind him.
Initially spaced well away from those gathered to hear Kirk speak, several people held a sprawling white banner with the words “F— off fascists” seemingly handwritten along its width.
Jaekwon Akins, a 20-year-old sophomore studying political science and the author of an online petition against an Indiana Senate bill on DEI, stood off to the side of the lawn and watched everything unfold. He said he was there for “good trouble,” a phrase associated with civil rights leader John Lewis.
“This is definitely a spectacle. Normally, Purdue doesn’t get this kind of recognition for things unless it’s basketball,” he said. “I’m not gonna stand idly by while negative things are happening to me and the people that I love.”
By the time the first hour passed, the lawn was much emptier than it had been when Kirk started. The protests and clashes died down with it.
Kang said they did not receive any reports of a physical altercation.
But the protesters holding signs and chanting at the speaker weren’t the only way students against Kirk made their voices known.
Between the Starbucks and Krach Leadership Center, two Purdue students stood on a cement block and blared their trumpets. One of those students, 23-year-old mechanical engineering senior Drew Payne, is a member of the Purdue band and came out to the event to “disrupt without engaging.”
Purdue students and members of the Purdue marching band Eli Sutaphong and Drew Payne play trumpets Thursday, April 10, 2025, during the Charlie Kirk speaking event at Krach Lawn on Purdue’s campus in West Lafayette, Ind.
Payne said Kirk’s game was to get clips for social media to make people look bad. He said he wouldn’t be able to outmaneuver him in a debate, but what he could do was make it harder to hear.
And Desteny Casanova, a 21-year-old junior studying studio art design, stood in the middle of the lawn not with a sign or anything screaming nonconformity. Look at Casanova’s canvases, though, and you’ll see how they really feel.
“I’m just drawing Charlie Kirk in a demeaning way and putting quotes that he said,” Casanova said.
One of Casanova’s drawings shows Kirk smiling with the words, “What is a woman.” Another says, “Women in their 30’s are no longer in their prime.”
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: Conservative commenter Kirk came to debate; Purdue struggled to listen
