Kyle Rittenhouse’s visit to Kent State University this week was met with mass protests and counterprogramming organized by students who opposed his speaking event.
In the last two months, Rittenhouse has made appearances at three college campuses to speak to students about the Second Amendment and the Black Lives Matter movement. He visited the University of Memphis and Western Kentucky University in March, before making his third stop at Kent State University this week.
In the weeks leading up to the 21-year-old’s visit to Kent State, two petitions were launched calling for his event’s cancellation, which drew thousands of signatures. Campus members also posted their criticisms online, scolding university officials for allowing his event to move forward.
After student protesters derailed Rittenhouse’s speech at the University of Memphis last month, Kent State TPUSA chapter members crafted an admission policy for his April event and warned students they would “pursue repercussions” against anyone obstructing their guest’s remarks per university policy.
Members of Kent State’s Black Student Union reserved tickets and conducted a silent protest in which they made no effort to show they were engaged in the event.
The event drew close to 200 protesters who surrounded the student center where Rittenhouse spoke on Wednesday. Video posted to X showed TPUSA organizers and audience members exiting the center to protesters chanting, “Murderer!”
Rittenhouse’s name became nationally known after he was acquitted of shooting three protesters during a Black Lives Matter protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 2020. Two of the men he shot died.
The man who survived the shooting was invited by several student organizations to speak to students on the same day as Rittenhouse’s event. In his remarks, Paul Prediger, formerly known as Gaige Grosskreutz, said that Rittenhouse “has used every moment to gloat and make light of taking life” and that he’s “embraced those who peddle a hateful rhetoric.”
“What I am here to do is to stand with the students of Kent State who have had enough,” Prediger continued. “Enough of Kyle and his rhetoric. Enough of the celebration of loss of human life. Enough of the flog logic that because a 17-year-old who shot me and killed two others with an illegally obtained firearm is now somehow qualified to be a champion of gun rights. Enough of the sad fragility that proclaiming and accepting Black Lives Matter, because they do, somehow devalues or threatens white lives. Enough of the lies and the deceit that has been told by Kyle Rittenhouse for over three years about what actually happened in Kenosha August 25, 2020.”
In Rittenhouse’s remarks, he advocated for “campus carry” laws in Ohio to allow people to conceal carry weapons on college campuses. Ohio law currently bans the concealed carry of guns on campuses and in university buildings. However, people can openly carry weapons in public areas.
“I know there are some people in the crowd who don’t like me, but that’s fine. We have the right to peacefully protest,” Rittenhouse said. “I think young women, young men have the right to protect themselves, have the right to own firearms and it’s a constitutional infringement for them to say you can’t carry a gun on campus.”
Many students condemned Rittenhouse’s visit to Kent State so close to the anniversary of a deadly campus shooting on May 4, 1970, when four student protesters were shot and killed by the Ohio National Guard.
Rittenhouse responded to Prediger’s speech on April 16 with a video on X of Prediger on the witness stand during Rittenhouse’s trial, where he admits to pointing his gun at Rittenhouse before he was shot.
“You’re a murderer. And a little boy who continues to be coached since you have no idea how to act like an adult,” one X user responds, prompting Rittenhouse to reply with a short clip of Prediger sitting in a chair that falls underneath him during a virtual court hearing.
