Together, these incidents speak to rising temperatures around free speech on college campuses, especially in the wake of the assassination of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk. They also present a test for university administrators at a time when the White House is accusing schools of suppressing conservative viewpoints.
The Trump administration has invited university leaders to sign on to an ideological compact, promising to commit to institutional neutrality and dismantle departments that “purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” among other requirements — or risk losing federal funds.
Social media has amplified the clashes at both schools, but particularly at Boston College.
The BC Republicans, who recently hosted Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss, denounced Solheim’s speech. Meanwhile, on X, conservative influencers expressed outrage at the college club’s decision.
“The future won’t belong to soft men chasing comfort,” posted Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, who said Solheim was “right, and he’s a patriot for saying so.”
Solheim then posted his speech on X with the message: “You can be controversial or you can be a coward.”
Within hours, the College Republicans of America said it had designated the BC Republicans an “unwelcome organization” and revoked the group’s charter. Its chairman called out the club’s president by name and said, “We don’t house traitors in our ranks.“
“Isn’t it awful? He’s a kid,” Auchincloss told the Globe Tuesday. He blamed social media for enabling “hyperventilating meanness” and suggested the solution to combating it is straightforward: “The answer is, people have to touch grass,” he said — that is, get off their screens.
“When you engage with people in real life, as I did with these students, what you find is there is a deep reservoir of common sense and decency amongst an exhausted majority of Americans,” he said, adding that he’d gladly debate Solheim in person. “That’s actually what deliberative democracy looks like. That’s actually how we heal the country.”
Solheim is the chief executive officer of the conservative advocacy group American Moment, which is part of a national initiative to “renew patriotism” ahead of America’s 250th anniversary. In the speech posted online, he begins by introducing himself as “an American history nerd” who’d never been to Boston, “the cradle of the American Revolution,” before asking students if they were ready to die for their cause.
“Because it’s not just people like me, like Charlie Kirk, like the president and vice president they’ll kill,” the speech continues, “given the chance, there are hundreds of thousands — if not millions — of people in America who would kill you for just being in this room. ‘College Republicans’ — they’re Nazis, they vote for Nazis, they have to die.”
He highlighted the murder of Kirk — “an inoffensive, kind, Christian man” — as proof of the danger facing conservatives. Little is publicly known so far about the politics and motivations of Kirk’s alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, though prosecutors said Robinson texted to his romantic partner that he’d “had enough of [Kirk’s] hatred.”
Jonathan Zatlin, an associate professor of history at Boston University, said Solheim’s argument deployed a familiar rhetorical strategy.
“It’s … ‘I want peace, but you’re going to force me to make war on you,’” said Zatlin. “That’s precisely what Solheim is saying, and it’s really dangerous.”
The Salient board of directors did not cite specific content or details that led to its decision to pause operations. However, an essay about nationalism that was printed in the September issue reminded many readers of Nazi rhetoric. One line in particular — which includes the refrain “Germany belongs to the Germans, France to the French, Britain to the British, America to the Americans” — echoes a 1939 speech by Adolf Hitler.
The article ends with an exhortation to reclaim values “rooted in blood, soil, language, and love of one’s own,” which, to some, sounded a lot like the Nazi slogan “blood and soil.”
Students were “unhappy that people are publishing Nazi material and distributing it at their door,” said Harvard professor of government Steven Levitsky.
But in a statement shared with the Harvard Crimson, Richard Y. Rodgers, editor in chief of the Salient, said no one meant to quote Hitler and defended the phrasing as “a generic nationalist formulation that has appeared countless times across centuries of political rhetoric.” More recently, he mentioned the article in a post accusing the Crimson of waging a campaign against conservative thought and dissent.
Rodgers said in an email to the Globe Monday night that the board’s actions amount to “little more than a mutiny” against the Salient’s student leadership, which on Tuesday said it would keep running despite the board’s “usurpation of power.”
Harvard professor of government and sociology Theda Skocpol hadn’t read the Salient article when she was reached by a reporter, but hearing about it, she let out a deep sigh.
“These days, I can’t always assume anybody knows any history,” she said. “Probably the right response to this kind of thing is to explain why that rhetoric has horrifying historical overtones, and not to attribute motivation — but to counter the rhetoric with an explanation.
“That’s what I would advise everybody to do,” she said.
Founded in 1981, The Harvard Salient claims it “stands openly against the prevailing liberal orthodoxy that stifles dissent and hollows out the life of the mind.”
But on campus it’s known for “trying to get itself out there and provoke people,” said Skocpol.
Another Salient article, “From Radcliffe to Ruin,” proposed that Harvard go back to the days of separate education for men and women, arguing that “The Harvard Man, once a figure of gravitas, self-possession, and cultivated virtue, is today an increasingly endangered species.”
The Salient’s 10-member board includes former US secretary of labor Alex Acosta, who served during President Trump’s first term. On Sunday, it said the offending material was “wholly inimical to the conservative principles for which the magazine stands,” and that in keeping with its fiduciary responsibility it would “investigate these matters fully and take appropriate action to address them.” Board members Naomi Schaefer Riley and Ruth Wisse declined to comment further when reached by email.
The board is also reviewing “deeply disturbing and credible complaints about the broader culture of the organization,” according to its statement.
University administrators, such as president Alan Garber, have kept quiet on the matter despite previously publicly condemning an antisemitic cartoon circulated on social media by “groups purporting to speak on behalf of Harvard affiliates.”
“Reckless provocation draws attention without advancing understanding,” he wrote in February 2024, as the Trump administration ratcheted up its attacks on Harvard in the name of fighting antisemitism.
“It is striking to me that they didn’t say anything this time,” said Levitsky. “And I think it just has to do with the political moment we’re in, in which bullying from the right is very powerful.”
But Skocpol said she doesn’t believe university presidents should be in the business of commenting on speech. “They should stick to the mission of the institution, and Garber’s doing that, and he’s got plenty on his hands,” she said.
Garber doesn’t need to declare his opposition to fascism, she said: “I think we can assume it.”
Brooke Hauser can be reached at brooke.hauser@globe.com. Follow her @brookehauser.