Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Thursday that his office will investigate the University of North Texas.
In an official statement, Paxton's office said the university has failed to appropriately respond to local reactions to the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September.
"Attorney General Paxton previously sent a letter to UNT regarding left-wing extremism and demanded answers from the university, but school leadership's response so far has been abysmal and real action has been non-existent," Paxton's office said in a press release.
In Thursday's announcement, Paxton singled out two campus organizations — the Denton Student Union and a chapter of American Iron Front — as continuing to promote "leftist political violence" on campus. He appears to consider both groups threats to the university community.
The Denton Student Union hadn't responded to a request for an interview by Thursday afternoon, and neither organization is listed among official student groups through the UNT Student Activities Center. The Denton Student Union mentioned Kirk in an Instagram post on Sept. 16, but the lengthy post focused on the August shooting of a Denton man experiencing homelessness. The American Iron Front is a pro-democracy, anti-fascist organization.
Tensions flared at UNT on the day Kirk was shot during an event on a college campus in Utah. A UNT student, Mary-Catharine Hallmark, posted a video of a confrontation with peers before a psychology class in which Hallmark asked why someone was cheering over Kirk's shooting.
While no one is seen or heard cheering in the video posted to social media, Hallmark said in a follow-up that some students clapped and cheered, and that someone said the same thing "needs to happen to Trump."
Hallmark posted an additional video claiming university officials failed to inform her she could make an official report about the incident.
Paxton requested that university officials review the incidents and discipline students who might have violated the student code of conduct by celebrating political violence.
UNT officials condemned the rhetoric after the incidents but didn't explicitly confirm an investigation.
"Despite those assurances, public reporting indicates that radical leftist violence has continued to persist with no resistance from the university," Paxton said in his letter. "To my knowledge, none of the agitator students who were under investigation for celebrating Mr. Kirk's death have been disciplined. In fact, new allegations suggest that the university continues to engage in viewpoint discrimination."
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Paxton also mentioned a video taken recently at UNT by the school's chapter of Turning Point USA, the organization Kirk co-founded. It depicts someone approaching the chapter's table, collecting printed materials, then walking away while ripping the papers and tossing them into the air before thrusting a middle finger in the air.
Paxton didn't characterize the incident as violence but as a demonstration of "radical leftist activity on UNT's campus."
The Denton Record-Chronicle contacted UNT administration on Thursday; this story will be updated with their response.
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