After the killing of Charlie Kirk last month, campus chapters of Turning Point USA held vigils across the country, including at Texas State University. A video of a student appearing to mimic Kirk getting shot went viral.
That student was Devion Canty Jr., a freshman who had just gotten to Texas State in August. Canty is one of 45 students, faculty members, and staff members at colleges that The Chronicle has identified as having faced punishment for Kirk-related speech.
While social-media speculation suggested that Canty was expelled for his conduct, the student told The Chronicle this week that he was forced to withdraw. Based on his interactions with administrators, he said he didn’t feel like he had a choice.
“It wasn’t really a conversation,” Canty said. “I was given an option [to withdraw], and it seemed like my only option.”
In the video, Canty shouts, “Charlie Kirk got hit in the neck, bitch,” while touching his neck and mimicking the recoiling of Kirk’s body from the bullet’s impact. He then climbs onto a statue pedestal and slumps to the ground, imitating a wounded body. Another video from the September 15 event shows Canty chanting, “fuck Charlie Kirk.”
Prominent politicians called on Texas State to punish the student, including Texas’ Republican governor, Greg Abbott, who wrote on X the day after the event: “Hey Texas State. This conduct is not accepted at our schools. Expel this student immediately. Mocking assassination must have consequences.”
The same day, Kelly Damphousse, president of Texas State University, released a statement calling the student’s behavior “reprehensible” and confirming that the student was no longer at Texas State. Damphousse provided no further details, citing privacy laws.
Canty said that the widely circulated clip captured one moment of a series of interactions at the vigil, which he described as a pro-Kirk “protest.” Before he was recorded mimicking Kirk’s death, Canty said that he and other Black students who were there faced harassment and were called racial slurs.
“When I was going to class, all I saw was 400 to 500 people in front of my building. Then, I saw my homeboy — he’s a political science major — and so first we went out there to kind of have a debate, and then it went left,” he said. “They started calling us [the N-word], started spitting on us. We watched women get hit and physically pushed … that was before I went on stage and did what I did.”
He added: “With so much of the provoking that was going on, in the moment, I didn’t feel like I was doing anything wrong.”
Texas State’s Turning Point USA chapter, which organized the vigil, did not respond to The Chronicle’s request for comment. After the vigil, the group thanked attendees in a social-media statement but didn’t mention any harassment or confrontation.
Canty told The Chronicle that since the vigil, he has received messages online saying, “We’re gonna lynch you [N-word].” The messages escalated in the days after the body of a Delta State University student was found hanging from a tree. The manner of the student’s death sparked speculation that he had been lynched, though authorities said there did not appear to be foul play.
Canty said he feels that Texas State treated him unfairly because he doesn’t know of anyone else at the Kirk vigil who faced punishment. “I was the only one that got significant consequences when there were bigger things going on other than me reenacting Kirk’s death,” he said.
Texas State would not comment on Canty’s case, but denounced the harassment that Canty said he and others faced at the vigil. “Harassment such as described is in direct opposition to TXST’s shared values, and it damages our community at its core,” a Texas State representative wrote to The Chronicle. “The university continues to follow up on reports where there’s evidence, a name, or witness.”
In an email to students last week, Damphousse described “the deterioration of behavior that we have seen at schools across the country” that “has crept onto our campus.” He also condemned online messages sent to Black students as “cruel and despicable, to say the least,” saying student leaders had shown him some of the comments.
“I ask that all Bobcats rise to the occasion to stand with each other,” Damphousse wrote in the September 26 email. “We cannot allow the inappropriate behaviors of the few to become the ‘new normal’ for the many.”
After withdrawing from the university, Canty started a GoFundMe page, both to seek financial help and share his side of the story. “I started [the GoFundMe] to clear some things up — that I did not get expelled and that I wasn’t just acting like that for no reason,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the only public narrative out there is that I am an ‘out-of-control, disrespectful young Black man,’” Canty wrote on his GoFundMe page. “In reality, I am a passionate student who made a mistake in the heat of the moment.”
As of Thursday afternoon, Canty had collected $34,310 in donations, which he said he plans to put toward his future college housing.
Canty has also received advice from the Texas State Employees Union, which represents many university workers. The union usually does not get involved in student affairs, but they reached out to Canty because his case mirrors what union leaders say is a broader attack on free speech and academic freedom at Texas State, a union spokesperson told The Chronicle.
This month, a tenured Texas State professor was fired after a video went viral of him speaking at an online socialism conference about the hypothetical overthrow of the U.S. government. He was reinstated with pay last week following a court order, but he will not teach while both campus and court proceedings continue.
A Texas State staff member also said last week that she lost her job after voicing her dissatisfaction on social media with how Canty was treated.
Ilesa Daniels, president of the Texas State Employees Union, said that regardless of whether Canty faced harassment and provocation, he shouldn’t have been punished for his actions. “I think that it is selective enforcement and suppression of political dissent,” Daniels said of the university’s handling of Canty’s case. “He’s supposed to be awarded the right to speak his mind and have his freedom of speech.”
Canty hopes that he will be able to return to Texas State, but will enroll elsewhere if he has to. A letter that his lawyer sent to Damphousse, demanding that Canty be reinstated as a student, has gotten no response so far.
“The fact that I’m not able to be on campus at this point, that’s the only part that I regret,” Canty said.
