Charlotte Train Stabber’s Half-Brother Murdered a White Person, Too

Jose Nino
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Charlotte Train Stabber’s Half-Brother Murdered a White Person, Too

(José Niño, Headline USA) While public attention focuses on DeCarlos Brown Jr.’s federal charges in the brutal stabbing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on Charlotte’s light rail system, the violent criminal history of his half-brother Stacey Dejon Brown has received considerably less scrutiny. .

Stacey Dejon Brown, now 32, is currently serving a 27-year prison sentence for the October 2012 murder of 65-year-old Robert Heym. The crime bears striking similarities to his half-brother’s recent attack, particularly in its use of Charlotte’s public transportation system as both a means of approach and escape. 

Brown used the Charlotte light rail to reach Conway Avenue, where he and co-defendant Roderick Crawford attempted to rob Heym at gunpoint, per a report by WSOC-TV 9. When the elderly man resisted, Brown shot him in the face with a sawed-off shotgun.

The parallels between the half-brothers’ crimes extend beyond their use of public transit. Both attacks involved vulnerable victims, unprovoked violence, and suspects with extensive criminal histories who had been repeatedly released by the justice system despite clear warning signs. 

Stacey Brown’s criminal activity began years before the murder that would ultimately land him in prison. In July 2012, months before killing Heym, he used bricks to break into vehicles in a parking garage. The day before the murder, he participated in another armed robbery, shooting a man in the back as the victim attempted to flee.

Court records reveal that Stacey Brown pleaded guilty to multiple charges on April 24, 2014, before Judge Hugh B. Lewis. His sentence of 324 to 438 months reflected the severity of his crimes: second-degree murder, two counts of robbery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill, and breaking or entering a motor vehicle.

For his part, DeCarlos Brown Jr., 34, faces federal charges that could result in the death penalty for the August 22 stabbing of Zarutska, per a press release by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of North Carolina.

His criminal record includes 14 prior arrests and a five-year prison sentence for armed robbery completed in 2020. Family members described his deteriorating mental health after his release from prison, including a diagnosis of schizophrenia and increasingly violent behavior.

Charlotte officials have acknowledged the breakdown in public safety protocols. Mayor Vi Lyles called Zarutska’s murder “a tragic failure by the courts and magistrates,” noting that police officers arrest individuals only to see them quickly released. 

The Charlotte Area Transit System has announced immediate security changes, including redeploying personnel for stronger presence on Blue Line platforms and adding nearly 30 additional security staff.

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino 

Netanyahu Meets With Rubio: US-Israeli Relations as Durable as the Western Wall

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Netanyahu Meets With Rubio: US-Israeli Relations as Durable as the Western Wall

(Kyle Anzalone, Antiwar.com) Secretary of State Marco Rubio is traveling to Israel to reaffirm the special relationship between Washington and Tel Aviv. President Donald Trump was reported to be frustrated with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after Israel attempted to assassinate several Hamas officials in Qatar.

Shortly after arriving in Israel on Sunday, Rubio made a visit to the Western Wall. “I think his visit here is a testament to the durability, the strength of the Israeli-American alliance,” Netanyahu told reporters. “It’s as strong, as durable as the stones in the Western Wall that he just touched. Under President Trump and Secretary Rubio and their entire team, this alliance has never been stronger.”

The State Department said the purpose of the trip was for Rubio to “convey America’s priorities in the Israel-Hamas conflict and broader issues concerning Middle Eastern security, reaffirming US commitment to Israeli security.” The statement added, “He will also emphasize our shared goals: ensuring Hamas never rules over Gaza again and bringing all the hostages home.”

Rubio’s travel to Israel follows Tel Aviv’s attempt to assassinate Hamas leadership in Qatar. Israel fired about a dozen missiles at a Hamas building in Doha, killing at least six people. However, Hamas’s leadership survived the attack.

The strike occurred as top members of the Palestinian group were meeting to discuss a ceasefire and hostage exchange that was proposed by President Donald Trump. The Qatari Prime Minister said that Netanyahu “killed any hope” of Hamas releasing the remaining living Israeli hostage with the assassination attempt.

Qatar, which is a major non-NATO US ally, has condemned the attack. Trump is reported to be frustrated with Netanyahu over the assassination attempt. “Every time they’re making progress, it seems like he bombs someone,” a source close to the White House told Politico. “That’s why the president and his aides are so frustrated with Netanyahu.”

This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com. 

Tucker Carlson Grills Sam Altman on Whistleblower’s Mysterious Death

Jose Nino
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Tucker Carlson Grills Sam Altman on Whistleblower’s Mysterious Death

(José Niño, Headline USA) Tucker Carlson pressed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on the suspicious death of OpenAI researcher Suchir Balaji, reviving claims of foul play that now grip Silicon Valley.

The confrontation that took place on Wednesday centered on Suchir Balaji, a 26-year-old AI researcher who worked at OpenAI for four years before becoming a vocal critic of the company’s practices. 

Balaji died in November 2024 from what San Francisco authorities ruled a suicide, but his mother Poornima Ramarao maintains he was murdered, according to a report by Newsweek.

Carlson opened the interview with a direct challenge. “You had complaints from one programmer who said you guys were basically stealing people’s stuff and not paying them, and then he wound up murdered. What was that?”

When Altman responded that Balaji committed suicide and described him as “like a friend of mine,” Carlson pressed harder. “No, he was definitely murdered,” Carlson insisted, citing what he called evidence of foul play.

The exchange reached its most uncomfortable moment when Carlson alleged that Balaji’s mother “believes he was murdered on your orders.” Altman appeared visibly shaken, responding, “I haven’t done too many interviews where I have been accused of murder.”

Carlson detailed several factors he claimed pointed to murder rather than suicide. “There was signs of a struggle. Of course, the surveillance camera wires had been cut. He had just ordered takeout food, come back from vacation with his friends on Catalina Island,” Carlson said.

The host questioned the official narrative further, asking, “How did he wind up bleeding in two rooms after shooting himself? And why was there a wig in the room that wasn’t his?” Carlson also noted that Balaji had “just spoken to a family member on the phone” before his death and showed “no indication at all that he was suicidal.”

Altman maintained his belief in the suicide ruling, explaining that initial reports made him suspicious but later evidence changed his mind. “After the first set of information that came out, I was really like, man, this doesn’t look like a suicide. I’m confused. But then after the second thing came out and the more detail, I was like, oh, okay,” Altman said.

He specifically cited “the second report on the way the bullet entered him and the sort of likely path of things through the room” as convincing evidence supporting suicide. 

Before his death, Balaji had become a prominent critic of OpenAI’s practices. In October 2024, he told the New York Times that OpenAI’s use of copyrighted material to train ChatGPT violated federal copyright laws. Balaji argued that AI systems like ChatGPT were “damaging the Internet” by undermining content creators’ commercial viability.

His death occurred just days before he was scheduled to serve as a potential witness in The New York Times’ copyright lawsuit against OpenAI. Court documents had identified him as having “unique and relevant documents” that could support the case against the company.

The San Francisco Medical Examiner’s Office ruled Balaji’s death a suicide, finding no evidence of foul play. The autopsy revealed he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound using a legally purchased firearm. Officials claimed his blood alcohol level was 0.178 percent and that his apartment was dead-bolted from inside with no signs of forced entry, according to a report by The San Francisco Board.

Despite these findings, Balaji’s parents hired private investigators and conducted a second autopsy. His mother, Poornima Ramarao, appeared on Carlson’s show in January, claiming OpenAI “attacked Balaji and killed him.”

José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino 

Office Depot Apologizes after Rogue Manager Refuses to Print Charlie Kirk Vigil ‘Propaganda’

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Office Depot Apologizes after Rogue Manager Refuses to Print Charlie Kirk Vigil ‘Propaganda’

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) The number of “FAFO” cases involving radical leftists fired for celebrating the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has ballooned in the days following his death on Wednesday.

Government workers, judges, teachers, healthcare workers, airline attendants and even a Secret Service staffer have been canned for voicing their deranged opinions, and a searchable database documenting the offenses has reportedly ballooned to tens of thousands of entries.

In some cases, corporations have been forced into embarrassing apologies after rogue employees abused their positions of authority.

Business-supply store Office Depot issued one such statement on Friday following a viral incident in Portage, Michigan.

“The behavior displayed by our associate is completely unacceptable and insensitive, violates our company policies, and does not reflect on the values we uphold at Office Depot,” said the statement.

 

The video—which was amplified by several high-profile conservative influencers, including Michigan activist Matthew DePerno—shows customers with the Kalamazoo County Republican Party confronting a motley array of employees.

The employees—all with bizarre hairstyles and unprofessional attire—remain seated and refuse to assist with a prepaid printing order advertising a local vigil for Kirk happening later that day.

The print supervisor, an overweight man named “Beryl” boasting a “Flock of Seagulls” hairdo, identifies himself before getting cut off by a female resembling Ernie Bushmiller’s classic cartoon character Nancy, who identifies herself as “one of the managers.”

They tell the customers that the vigil poster violates the store policy on printing “propaganda.”

“What makes it propaganda?” asks the female customer filming the exchange.

“Because he’s a political figure and I don’t have to…” the manager begins before Beryl chimes in that the general manager will return three days later.

After the exchange went public, FedEx reportedly stepped in to print the flyers for free.

The Friday vigil, organized by members of the Kalamazoo Young Republicans, took place as planned in downtown Kalamazoo’s Bronson Park.

In its statement, Office Depot said it had launched an internal review and that “the associate involved is no longer with the organization.”

It did not specify whether it was Beryl or the manager who had been terminated.

The company also pledged to “reinforce training with all team members to ensure our standards of respect, integrity, and customer service are upheld…”

Kirk’s death, and the callous reactions of many on the Left, have triggered a reckoning of sorts, compared in some ways to the social-justice push that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd while in police custody.

However, conservatives already had been making their voices heard by pressuring into submission corporations deemed to have gone overboard with their woke policies and messaging.

Companies like Bud Light, Cracker Barrel and Target have all been forced to capitulate after widespread outrage led to stock plunges and boycotts.

Prominent social-media influencer Blake “Brick Suit” Marnell played off the corporate anxieties with a meme of notorious inside-trader Nancy Pelosi appearing to tell her stock broker to sell Office Depot shares before a devaluation of the company.

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

BREAKING: 2 Arrested for Planting Bomb under Utah Media Van Days after Kirk Assassination

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BREAKING: 2 Arrested for Planting Bomb under Utah Media Van Days after Kirk Assassination

(Headline USA) Authorities in Utah say two men have been arrested on suspicion of placing an incendiary device under a news media vehicle in Salt Lake City. The bomb didn’t go off.

Police and fire department bomb squads responded Friday when a suspicious device was found under the vehicle parked near an occupied building.

Also on Friday, police reportedly evacuated the neighborhood where alleged Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson’s family lives, which is about 300 miles away from Salt Lake City. Police may have been evaluating the neighborhood out of an abundance of caution after finding the Salt Lake City bomb, but at this point it’s unclear if the two events are related.

Investigators determined the bomb “had been lit but failed to function as designed,” according to court records cited by CBS affiliate KUTV.

The FBI identified two suspects and served a search warrant at a home in the Magna neighborhood west of the city’s downtown. Two men, ages 58 and 31, were arrested and could face charges related to weapons possession and threats of terrorism, ABC affiliate KTVX reported Sunday.

Neighboring homes were evacuated during the search, which turned up explosives and “explosive-related components,” firearms, illegal narcotics and other paraphernalia, court records say. Authorities say they also found at least two devices that turned out to be hoax weapons of mass destruction.

There was no information about a possible motive and the relationship between the two suspects wasn’t immediately known.

News media have descended on Salt Lake City following last week’s assassination of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

 

CENTER SQUARE EXCLUSIVE: Funding for Green Groups Soared after 2009 Endangerment Finding

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CENTER SQUARE EXCLUSIVE: Funding for Green Groups Soared after 2009 Endangerment Finding

(, The Center Square) Changes to the Environmental Protection Agency’s strict regulations on the automobile industry could cost nonprofit groups that reported a 267% funding bump in the years since the federal agency’s 2009 Endangerment Finding, a rule that provided a legal basis for the agency to regulate vehicle emissions and the energy industry through the Clean Air Act.

Democracy Restored, a nonprofit dedicated to showing how government works, reviewed the tax returns of more than 75 of the top nonprofit organizations focused on climate change. Funding for those 75 groups has increased significantly since 2009 with their bottom lines moving from about $3 billion to $8 billion, since the most recently available tax returns were made public, said Houston Keene, director of Democracy Restored.

Government grants to those same 75 organizations increased from $350 million in 2009 to nearly $1.4 billion in 2023, the most recent year for which records were available.

“The endangerment finding seems to have given a very big boost to these groups,” Keene told The Center Square.

In July, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed to rescind an Obama-era environmental finding, or endangerment finding, impacting the automobile industry. Trump’s EPA boss, Lee Zeldin, says the endangerment finding cost the industry $1 trillion in regulations. Trump’s EPA blames the 2009 Endangerment Finding for the Biden administration’s electric vehicle mandate, which aimed to reduce the production of gas-powered vehicles.

Zeldin’s EPA says that if the proposal is finalized, it will lead to the repeal of all “resulting greenhouse gas emissions regulations for motor vehicles and engines,” resulting in consumer choice and affordability. The agency says that it will save over $54 billion a year.

In support of the proposal, the EPA cited new scientific data it says challenges “the assumptions behind the 2009 Endangerment Finding.” The EPA chief contends the Obama and Biden administrations used “warped science” to cram through new emission standards.

Other groups disagree. Former vice president and environmental activist Al Gore says the move ignores reality.

Keene said the groups are pushing policies out of touch with Americans.

“They’re pushing policies that the majority of Americans wouldn’t want to live under or even agree with at this point,” he told The Center Square.

Keene said that such spending needs to be carefully examined going forward.

“What needs to happen next is we need to see these contracts and the spending in the grants. We need to have a very, very fine-tuned microscope,” he told The Center Square. “We need to know, you know who these groups are, where this money is going. What comes next is oversight – proper oversight.”

Illegal Alien Kills Boss by Beheading in Latest Crime Horror

Luis Cornelio
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Illegal Alien Kills Boss by Beheading in Latest Crime Horror

(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A Dallas family is mourning the death of a loved one after an illegal alien allegedly beheaded him and then kicked his severed head like a football following a dispute.

The suspect, Yordanis Cobos-Martinez, had been released into the U.S. by the Biden administration despite a lengthy criminal record that included child sex abuse and carjacking.

Additionally, Martinez was reportedly employed by the man he later murdered.

The gruesome killing was captured on security footage, fueling outrage on from the Trump administration, which blamed the murder on Biden’s open-borders polices.

The video shows hotel manager Chandra Nagamallaiah running from Martinez as he swung a machete and delivered multiple stabs and cuts.

Nagamallaiah’s wife and son, both present during the attack, tried desperately to intervene but were pushed back by Martinez as he carried out the attack.

The brutal murder took place Sept. 10 in Dallas, Texas, after Martinez reportedly grew angry when Nagamallaiah had a third person translate instructions telling him not to use a broken washing machine at the hotel.

Martinez now faces murder charges and is being held without bond in Dallas.

The Trump campaign condemned the killing, saying Nagamallaiah’s death was preventable had Biden not allowed Martinez into the U.S.

Martínez had a standing deportation order to Cuba but was nonetheless released on Jan. 13, 2025, after Cuba refused to take him back.

Among his prior offenses were child sex abuse, grand theft auto, carjacking and false imprisonment, DHS wrote in a statement.

“This gruesome, savage slaying of a victim at a motel by Yordanis Cobos-Martinez was completely preventable if this criminal illegal alien was not released into our country by the Biden Administration since Cuba would not take him back,” Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.

According to court documents, Martinez later confessed to the crime during police interviews.

Sen. Ed Markey Calls for Overthrow of Gov’t, Arrest of Trump for Plotting ‘Coup’

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Sen. Ed Markey Calls for Overthrow of Gov’t, Arrest of Trump for Plotting ‘Coup’

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., has appeared to endorse a plan for activist judges to wage a coup, upending the will of the people, in order to imprison President Donald Trump on a spurious claim of “election denialism.”

Although Markey did not state his seditious intent outright, he couched it in an endorsement of a New York Times op-ed cheering Brazil’s corrupt court ruling against its former president, Jair Bolsonaro.

“Brazil is sending its election denier to prison for 27 years. We sent ours back to the White House,” Markey wrote. “… We need to learn from Brazil before it’s too late.”

The op-ed in question, written jointly by professors at Harvard and Johns Hopkins universities, suggested that justice had been served after a tribunal of five judges voted four to one to convict Bolsonaro, giving the 70-year-old statesman what effectively amounted to a life sentence to prevent him from further impacting Brazilian politics.

Touted as the “Trump of the Tropics,” he succeeded in unseating far-left socialist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva amid a populist wave in the country’s 2018 election. But as was the case in the 2020 U.S. election, Bolsonaro was overcome by institutional election-meddling, led by a handful of powerful judges, and forced to cede the presidency back to “Lula.”

For instance: “On Election Day, the Superior Electoral Tribunal took several steps to ensure the integrity of the vote, including ordering the dismantling of illegal checkpoints established by pro-Bolsonaro police and announcing the results immediately after the vote count concluded so that Mr. Bolsonaro would not have time to contest them,” Markey’s recent Times op-ed shamelessly boasted.

Mass uprisings resulted, leading to the arrest of Bolsonaro and accusations of an attempted “coup” that—once again—mirrored, in many ways, the lawfare waged against Trump during the Biden administration.

To further suppress scrutiny of its shady election-meddling, Brazil’s tribunal court, led by corrupt left-wing justice Alexandre de Moraes, began targeting Bolsonaro’s supporters for persecution.

“Under Justice Moraes, the court suspended the social media accounts of activists it found had engaged in anti-democratic online activity, ordered the removal of some online content it deemed threatening to democracy, searched the homes of pro-Bolsonaro businessmen who were alleged to have supported a coup, and even arrested a pro-Bolsonaro congressman who had called for dictatorship and the dissolution of the court,” the Times op-ed rejoiced.

“… These measures were controversial in Brazil, and they are certainly somewhat at odds with America’s libertarian tradition, but they were broadly consistent with how Germany and other European democracies regulate anti-democratic speech,” it added.

Bolsonaro’s supporters, who continue to decry the stolen election, now look to Trump for some form of intervention.

Trump has denounced the rampant judicial corruption in Brazil and warned that allowing de Moraes to remain in power would result in economic consequences.

“Alexandre de Moraes has taken it upon himself to be judge and jury in an unlawful witch hunt against U.S. and Brazilian citizens and companies,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in July, according to Fox News. “De Moraes is responsible for an oppressive campaign of censorship, arbitrary detentions that violate human rights, and politicized prosecutions—including against former President Jair Bolsonaro.”

Markey’s dogwhistle call for an anti-Trump coup by the deep state echoes the justifications used by the Obama administration and its intelligence operatives to stage a seditious coup against Trump as part of the Russia-gate conspiracy.

It also follows a long tradition of Democrats and deep-state operatives accusing their targets of threatening “democracy,” then using the baseless accusations as a pretense to cast off all reasonable guardrails and redresses to their own anti-democratic practices.

Serious investigative journalists—including Lee Smith and Glenn Greenwald—are among those who have denounced Brazil’s kangaroo court.

Greenwald—a longtime Democrat who gained renown for exposing the NSA spying scandal during the Obama administration—noted that the judicial panel adjudicating Bolsonaro’s case had a stacked deck.

Smith—famous for being one of the leading journalists to expose the Russia-gate hoax and its attempted cover-up—noted that Markey’s comments followed a familiar playbook.

“Democrat official promoting leftwing criminality against the right, in this case: arrest all our opponents for practicing free speech,” Smith wrote. “Nothing has changed.”

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

Massive London Protest to Reclaim UK Invokes Charlie Kirk as Rallying Cry

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Massive London Protest to Reclaim UK Invokes Charlie Kirk as Rallying Cry

(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) In life, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was famous for reaching across the aisle to engage ideological adversaries.

But since his shocking assassination on Wednesday, Kirk’s potential to become a powerful martyr and symbol for conservative causes may well become the catalyst for a movement to route left-wing extremism for good.

The 31-year-old Arizona native on Saturday became the rallying cry for many during the “Unite the Kingdom” protest in London, where hundreds of thousands of British residents—if not more—turned out in opposition to the United Kingdom’s Orwellian censorship and open-border immigration policies.

The demonstration included a poignant moment of silence for the slain conservative U.S. activist with bagpipes evoking for some the state funeral of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Another video showed an evening candlelight vigil in Kirk’s honor, with England’s iconic Parliament building and Big Ben in the background.

Although leftist news sources estimated a crowd size of around 110,000, many noted that aerial photos of the event showed a far larger turnout, with upper estimates even claiming 3 million.

The moment of silence for Kirk came during a speech by event organizer Tommy Robinson, founder of English Defence League, which sprung up in opposition to the country’s recent takeover by Muslim immigrants.

“They want to divide us, but we will not let them. They want to silence us, but we will not be silenced. They want to destroy our culture, but we will protect it,” Robinson said during the roughly nine-minute speech. “We are the silent majority no more. We are here, and we are united.”

 

In a separate post on social media, Robinson declared, “The lion is awake, the roar is deafening in London as millions take to the streets against the erosion of our free speech and against those paid to lead us, given our country’s away.”

Backlash against the British government has grabbed headlines in recent months underscoring its draconian treatment of its own citizens and its coddling of sometimes violent immigrant populations.

That included a viral video that appeared to show three preteen girls in Dundee, Scotland, defending themselves against two immigrants while brandishing a machete and battle ax.

Leftist media attempted to paint Saturday’s massive demonstration in London as one espousing hate and xenophobia, but video showed a diverse array of British citizens coming together for love of country.

Kirk was killed Wednesday after a 22-year-old sniper fired on him during an outdoor talk at Utah Valley University.

U.S. President Donald Trump ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in his honor as many wondered how his death—the first political assassination of a high-profile public figure in America since John Lennon in 1980—would shift the public discourse.

Kirk’s widow, Erika, addressed the nation on Friday night, leading to a massive surge in interest for his grassroots Turning Point USA organization, potentially tripling the number of student-led chapters on U.S. campuses.

A memorial service for Kirk is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 21 at State Farm Stadium in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona.

Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/realbensellers.

Damning Report Card: California Schools Get an ‘F’

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Damning Report Card: California Schools Get an ‘F’

(, The Center Square) The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Free Speech Rankings crowned California’s Claremont McKenna College with a grade of B- as the best college in the U.S. for free speech, while a string of other California schools received F grades amid anti-free speech environments across campuses.

FIRE released its sixth annual College Free Speech Rankings, which pulled responses on free-speech topics from 68,510 students attending 257 American colleges. The survey highlighted a decline in support for free speech among all students.

Students on both sides of the political aisle are showing a deep “unwillingness” to face controversial ideas, the press releases stated.

“This year, students largely opposed allowing any controversial campus speaker, no matter that speaker’s politics,” said FIRE President and CEO Greg Lukianoff. “Rather than hearing out and then responding to an ideological opponent, both liberal and conservative college students are retreating from the encounter entirely … We must champion free speech on campus as a remedy to our culture’s deep polarization.”

According to the FIRE survey, Claremont McKenna College is ranked in the top 10 best schools for free speech on  “Comfort Expressing Ideas,” “Openness” and “Self-Censorship,” among other categories.

Shortly after the horrific assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk at a Utah college campus event, Claremont Independent, the college newspaper, wrote a story on how CMC students reacted to the killing of Kirk.

“Even those who despise Kirk and everything he stood for should mourn the damage his assassination will do to America’s fragile architecture of free speech and civil discourse. There can be no picking and choosing in the world of free expression. It’s free speech for all, or free speech for none,” the editorial board wrote.

Out of the 257 schools surveyed, 166 of them received an F for their free speech climate. Only 10 schools received a free speech grade of C. Claremont McKenna was the only college to get a better grade than a C.

Stanford University and Chapman University ranked 75 and 97 and received a D- grade and an F, respectively. Other colleges such as University of California, Los Angeles; UC San Francisco; UC Davis; Pomona College;  UC Santa Barbara; and California State University, Fresno all received an F grade for their free speech environments.

UC Berkeley, which was known for its free speech movement in 1964-65, also got an F on free speech.

Schools are not meeting the bare minimum for neutral stances on political controversies, Sean Stevens, chief research adviser for FIRE, told The Center Square.

The survey also noted that, nationally, 71% of students believe it is acceptable to shout down a speaker, and 53% believe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is too sensitive to discuss.

“Those students who are the furthest to the left have been the most accepting of violence for as long as we’ve asked the question,” Stevens told The Center Square. “But a rising tide of acceptance of violence has raised all boats. Now, regardless of party or ideology, students across the board are more open to violence as a way to shut down a speaker.”

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