Finding courage in the midst of exhaustion and grief can be a monumental challenge—especially when confronted with acts of incomprehensible cruelty.

The reactions of some left-leaning students to Wednesday’s assassination of conservative figure Charlie Kirk have sparked widespread outrage, revealing the depths of malice that can surface in such moments.

On Wednesday, a student at North Texas University, who goes by the TikTok handle “marycatherine_0,” shared a video recounting her classmates’ disturbing response to Kirk’s death. She alleged that some even mocked his fatherless young children—a moment that pushed her to speak out.

“Some of my friends think I should share my story,” the student said in the video.

She explained that she arrived ten minutes early to her Quantitative Methods class. Before the lecture began, a female student brought up Kirk’s shooting to another student who hadn’t heard of him, using standard leftist epithets to slander the conservative activist—calling him racist, homophobic, and worse.

“I’m just like, ‘whatever.’ I don’t have the energy to intervene,” “marycatherine_0” recalled. “Or the courage.”

But the situation escalated. The female student began showing the video of Kirk’s shooting.

“Everyone starts clapping and cheering,” she said. “They’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, Charlie Kirk, he’s gonna die. I can’t wait. This is the best day ever.’ They said things like, ‘This needs to happen to Trump,’ and started naming others.”

The students then reached a shocking low.

“That’s when I stood up,” she continued. “She said, ‘Yeah, and I’m pretty sure he has a family and two little girls. This is awesome. They’re gonna grow up without a dad.’”

The sheer cruelty of that statement is hard to overstate.

The student confronted her classmates, telling them no one deserves such treatment, regardless of their political beliefs. Instead of support, she said, “the whole class was just reaming me.”

The professor, who had witnessed the incident, approached her—not the students—and suggested, laughingly, “Y’all should probably take this outside.”

She then approached the dean of students and learned of Kirk’s death. As is often the case, the dean took no action. The dean redirected her to the head of the psychology department, a familiar chain-of-command in academia that often favors faculty over students.

At that point, she said, she already understood how the situation would unfold. A conservative student confronting faculty would rarely be supported by a department chair.

Perhaps the most poignant moment came when she was asked what she wanted out of the confrontation. She simply requested that her class absence be removed from her record.

The innocence of that request is striking. On one hand, she wanted to follow the rules and receive the education she paid for. On the other, she was grappling with the fact that those enforcing the rules often behave with cowardice or malice.

She also posted a short video showing part of her confrontation before class, which readers can view below.

Conservative commentators argue that this incident underscores the need to overhaul the university system, including personnel and programs, to root out leftist ideological influence.

In the meantime, prayers and support are urged for students like her, who have faced such hostility.