If a Florida House Republican has his way, Daytona State College will have to redesignate Pinecrest Avenue as Charlie James Kirk Avenue.
Florida State College in Jacksonville will have to redesignate Broad Street as Charlie James Kirk Street.
The University of North Florida will have to drop its own name on UNF Drive and rename it Charlie James Kirk Drive. New College, already slated to have a Charlie Kirk statue (of Kirk sitting at a table as if discoursing with someone) will have to do likewise with its College Drive.
The University of Florida will have to rename Stadium Road, which wends its way through the heart of campus, including past Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and the journalism department, as Charlie James Kirk Road.
The University of Central Florida’s Gemini Boulevard South will have to be redesignated Charlie James Kirk Boulevard, severing a link with the university’s heritage (“Gemini Boulevard, Andromeda Loop and Apollo Circle aren’t just happy coincidences,” the university states on its traditions page. “They reflect UCF’s beginnings as a space university.”
And so on with every one of Florida’s 40 public universities and colleges, each of which will have to redesignate a road, a street or an avenue after Charlie Kirk, the extremist controversialist who was assassinated last month during one of his famed appearances before a college crowd in Utah. Revered among wide swaths of the right, Kirk had a long record of making divisive, discriminatory, bigoted and demeaning statements about non-white races, women, the LGBTQ community, Muslims, multiculturalism and immigrants, and was an advocate of exposing, doxing and censoring academics who did not toe the lines he espoused. It is likely the bill will generate significant debate if it is taken up in committees.
Rep. Kevin Steele, the Dade City Republican, filed the bill (HB 113) ahead of the session starting in January. It does not have a Senae companion.
The bill does not project the cost to each college for changing street signs, which are not cheap, or the associated complications with address, mailing and stationary changes for the college and university office buildings that typically line the roadways.
But “State funds shall be withheld from any state university or Florida College System institution whose board of trustees fails to redesignate the roadway or portion of a roadway listed” within 90 days of the bill becoming law.
S. Peters says
That’s ridiculous!
Jean says
Ridiculous and expensive in honor of a promoter of hate, gunviolence, and public executions. Does anybody realize what it costs to change a street name?
R.S. says
Typical overreach on the part of a dreadfully one-sided and intolerant group of people. They won’t rest until everyone’s in the group-think mode.
Pogo says
@Nicknames
… the rest of us will use: road to nowhere, highway to hell, skid row…
JimboXYZ says
That’s what they do for each other, hand out meaningless awards & rename buildings & streets, even erect statues & monuments for one another. Gotta call the street something, really a waste of signage to change the street name before the street sign needs to be replaced. George Floyd was another that ended up with more recognition than he deserved on merit.
Monday, 1st day in a long time I went to the beach. So I’m at the pier watching the grommets in the water, used the restroom there for the appropriate gender and there was no drama. I noticed a box under the A-frame. labeled as “Free Narcan” and a full box of the stuff. That’s what America has become, leaving boxes of Fentanyl antidote for the drug addicts out as litter. Wonder if they’ll rename it, “The George Floyd Narcan Dispensary Program” ? Wow, just realized I could become an effective State Legislator, all I have to do is sponsor & push a bill thru the State Legislature for more stupidity ?
Laurel says
I thought that Republicans were against government overreach! What happened?
Charlie Kirk Drive. Florida continues down the Jimmy Buffett Memorial Highway to be the laughing stock of the country.
This from a group who is supposedly against I-N-D-O-C-T-R-I-N-A-T-I-O-N. Now, we’re indoctrination nation.
Dusty says
Forced? If it is what people what it is not forced it is a gesture. Similar to every town I. The USA having a street named after ML King.
Lucille oday says
What did this man do for our state, it’s a travesty.DuhSatin is not considering how Florida tax payers feel. It’s outrageous.
Joe D says
Seriously!?! And what is all this going to COST Florida taxpayers (ultimately through re-appropriated college budgets). Charlie Kirk’s assassination was unconscionable in the CIVIL society the US is supposed to be….but the equivalent to State sponsored “SAINTHOOD”…RIDICULOUS!
He was gunned down expressing his FREE SPEECH rights…as EVERYONE in the US should have the right to FREELY do (ie. Jimmy Kimmel, State employees on PRIVATE E-MAIL ACCOUNTS and SOCIAL MEDIA SITES)….as long as they do not threaten violence toward someone.
This has just gotten COMPLETELY out of hand….the more I read what Charlie Kirk stood for, the less I’m impressed with his views (other than his constitutionally given right to express them).
Talk about routing out GOVERNMENT WASTES?!? What a joke that is!
Joe D says
Reply to Dusty…
Okay….as long as no state appropriated (taxpayers’) funds are used for the name changes, and a petition group of a majority of the institutions “want it”…AND THE MONEY IS RAISED PRIVATELY from donations…have at it!
PS: Martin Luther King professed that he wanted ALL people to be able to get along and be treated FAIRLY…very LITTLE of that sentiment was in Charlie Kirk’s RHETORIC.
Deborah Coffey says
Vomitous. And yet, the eighties compare him to Martin Luther King. Really?
DOGEd another one says
Where the hell are the State DOGE asshats, a total waste of public funds for what? Hate to admit it but seems that pub’s are exempt from any ethical, financial, political and legal scrutiny.
Drauka Grissa says
I take issue with this for several reasons.
1. Nobody should be compelled in their speech for any reason. If they want to do so, then they should be allowed to do so, but they should never be forced to do so.
2. Can we stop turning human beings into idols and worshipping them?
3, From what I know of the man, he would not want people doing these things, he would rather have them worship God.
Skibum says
Only allow such a travesty like “Charlie Kirk St” if it intersects with “David Duke Blvd” or “Tom Metzger Ave”… you know, those infamous grand wizards of the KKK.
And for those brainless wonders who ask why not if other cities have named streets after famous people like Martin Luther King, etc., I don’t know if common sense or logic would do any good trying to answer such a ridiculous question. America is and has been doing away with names of confederate army leaders that were attached to schools, military bases, their “monuments” and statues, simply because of the truth that those individuals who fought other Americans in an attempt to overthrow our federal government in order to preserve slavery should NOT be honored.
Neither should the likes of KKK grand wizards and others who fomented hate, division, misogyny, bigotry, racism, etc. Those who want to hold up Charlie Kirk as some kind of personal hero, feel free… you do you. But the rest of us should not have to be a party to such pathetic, un-Christian like examples of humanity who served only themselves and the white supremist “Chiristian Nationalism” movement which they referred to as religious based but was more of a maga cult.
No thank you!