JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 One Florida lawmaker is looking to memorialize Charlie Kirk by naming one street on every state college and university campus after the late conservative activist. <\/p>\n
The legislation names 12 state universities and 28 state colleges and designates the roads that would receive the name change at each institution, including prominent streets like UNF Drive at the University of North Florida and Stadium Road at the University of Florida.<\/p>\n
The bill also threatens to withhold funding from schools that refuse to make the change within 90 days of the bill being signed.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Sponsor State Representative Kevin Steele (R-Hudson) told Action News Jax he sees colleges and universities as the perfect place to honor Kirk\u2019s legacy,stood as he hosted his free speech events on campuses.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, he prompted conversation. He showed courage is not noise,\u201d said Steele.<\/p>\n Students we spoke with at UNF had differing views on the idea, with Daniel Serrano seeing it as a fitting tribute.<\/p>\n \u201cRegardless of where you stand, I mean, his whole point of view was going to college campuses and challenging thought and getting people to discuss openly. So, I think it\u2019s a good thing. I think it should be encouraged on college campuses,\u201d said Serrano.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Kayla Chard felt the name changes only stood to stoke division.<\/p>\n \u201cI just think it\u2019s quite inappropriate and it\u2019s unfair for students who might not associate themselves with that person or with that person\u2019s views,\u201d said Chard. \u201dI think it infringes on our right to have a peaceful environment on campus. I think if that bill were to pass, that it would cause outrage on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n State Representative Angie Nixon (D-Jacksonville) argued the proposal is unserious and only serves to distract from more pressing issues.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have Republican lawmakers who really quite frankly don\u2019t give a damn and just really want us to be fighting each other and not pushing back on the fact that they failed to meet their promises of helping Floridians across the state,\u201d said Nixon.<\/p>\n Steele said he\u2019s surprised by the pushback his legislation has gotten and made an offer to those who oppose it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe all have our own opinions, and so we should be entitled to share those opinions, and I welcome people that were ranting hate online to come to my office,\u201d said Steele. \u201cLet\u2019s have a conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n Steele also said he does anticipate changes to the specific roads designated in his bill as it moves forward.<\/p>\n He said he plans to work with universities to ensure roads named after Kirk aren\u2019t hidden away, but that they also don\u2019t replace prominent roads that have a revered history on the campuses.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 One Florida lawmaker is looking to memorialize Charlie Kirk by naming one street on every…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":296604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[11030,5229,33767,151381,119908,151384,3188,723,151379,11561,7310,3005,48908,48916,151385,151383,15916,425,7047,151382,48911,30234,26596,46512,151380,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-296603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-angie_nixon","11":"tag-charlie_james_kirk_drive","12":"tag-charlie_kirk","13":"tag-daniel_serrano","14":"tag-fl","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-fscj_saint_johns_river_river_state_college","17":"tag-jack","18":"tag-jacksonville","19":"tag-jake","20":"tag-jake_stoan","21":"tag-jake_stowan","22":"tag-kayla_chard","23":"tag-kevin_steele","24":"tag-kirk","25":"tag-local","26":"tag-republican","27":"tag-stadium_road","28":"tag-state_representative","29":"tag-steele","30":"tag-uf","31":"tag-unf","32":"tag-unf_drive","33":"tag-united-states","34":"tag-united-states-of-america","35":"tag-unitedstates","36":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","37":"tag-us","38":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}