University of Minnesota updates safety protocols ahead of Turning Point USA event

University of Minnesota officials have updated campus safety protocols before Monday night’s Turning Point event.

Turning Point USA’s “American Comeback Tour” is stopping at the Minneapolis campus, featuring conservative personality Michael Knowles, who is stepping in for Charlie Kirk, the founder of the organization who was assassinated while speaking at a Utah college campus about two weeks ago.

Kirk was buried Sunday and President Donald Trump spoke at his memorial.

Though the Turning Point event is being held at the U at Northrop auditorium, the school is not sponsoring the activities.

The event had promised “a high-energy evening featuring a candid conversation about conservative values, followed by a live Q&A” but will now be a “tribute to Charlie and an open forum for Q&A,” according to a post by Knowles on X.

In a note on Friday to students, faculty and staff, U President Dr. Rebecca Cunningham said she wanted to “acknowledge the anxiety” about the Turning Point event and wrote that the U has “updated our safety protocols to take every precaution warranted to ensure safety for all.”

She sent the note Friday after shots were fired about 8:45 p.m. Thursday near Rapson Hall during a student group’s fall kickoff event inside that building. The U issued a safety alert, but no one was injured, according to KARE 11.

The U added in a statement that: “Ensuring the safety of all at the University while also providing places for the robust exchange of ideas is our foremost commitment and central to our educational mission.”

Some professors have moved classes online due to safety concerns, doctoral student Kelly Rogers said.

“I’m seeing a pattern with the [in-person] classes being cancelled,” Rogers said, adding that many seem to be College of Liberal Arts (CLA) courses. “There’s a clear divide of who feels safe on campus today and who doesn’t.”

An email from CLA, sent by the college’s Office of Faculty and Academic Affairs, said that instructors have the “authority to move courses on line temporarily in order to address safety concerns.”

The email included an attachment about campus policies related to the community’s security concerns. The document lists resources for “general safety and well-being” on campus and online, including counseling for students, faculty and staff, what to do if a student’s behavior becomes concerning and how to secure one’s “online footprint” to increase safety on the internet.

Rogers, who didn’t want to disclose her department for safety reasons, said some of the professors who moved to online instruction Monday were on a Turning Point “professor watch list” of instructors who are allegedly biased against conservative views.