Showing that he’s always laser-focused on what really matters, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered all high schools to have a Turning Point USA chapter called “Club America.”
Sure, Texas has basically frozen per-student funding for years, which means that—thanks to inflation—funding is actually decreasing. And, yes, Texas is hiring uncertified teachers and closing schools. It’s also true that 73% of Texas schools are underfunded. But surely turning every school into a shrine to Charlie Kirk will fix it.
“This is about values. This is about constitutional principles. This is about a restoration of who we are as a country,” Abbott said of the new order.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott
But that rings a little hollow when you realize that the Texas Education Agency is already investigating complaints against teachers who rabid conservatives decided were insufficiently laudatory of Kirk.
So what if your school doesn’t want a Turning Point chapter? Too bad.
“Any school that stands in the way of a Club America program in their school should be reported immediately to the Texas Education Agency,” Abbott said, adding that there would be “meaningful disciplinary action.”
It isn’t clear what mechanism the state would have to enforce this demand, but that doesn’t really matter. Even if schools or teachers can’t somehow be officially sanctioned, they can be dragged through an investigation.
Abbott knows that he’s untouchable: He’s got a pliant legislature, a hyper-conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and a Supreme Court stocked with conservatives who believe that free speech only applies to right-wingers and Christians.
That’s likely why he was completely open about saying that he won’t do this for a left-leaning student group, but magnanimously declaring that “it would not be illegal” for a left-leaning group to exist in public schools.
Except Abbott is straight-up lying. Texas has already passed a law banning any student clubs based on gender identity or expression. No LGBTQ+ clubs, no gay-straight alliances—nothing.
But clubs founded by the guy who spent years attacking LGBTQ+ people and encouraged students and parents to report any professors suspected of not hating trans people enough? Well, that’s mandatory.
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk speaks during a rally in 2024.
Abbott is actually a bit late to the game on this one. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis already did this in October, turning loose Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas to enforce Turning Point chapters in schools.
“If you try to serve as an obstacle, if you are a hurdle, if you get in the way of any student or teacher (who wants to) start a Turning Point USA chapter, you will be met with the full force of the law,” Kamoutsas said.
And former Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters mandated Turning Point chapters in schools way back in September. But since he quit for a job where he said he will “destroy the teachers unions,” it isn’t clear if that requirement is going to stick.
If all of these schools are lucky, maybe—along with their forced Turning Point clubs—they’ll get to have an incredibly ugly statue of Kirk, just like the big kids at Florida’s New College.
And why not? We’re well into idolatry territory, so why not have a shrine to venerate a martyr?
