US Department of Education hangs Charlie Kirk banner outside DC building

The US Department of Education has hung large banners outside its building in Washington DC, including one featuring an image of the late far-right commentator, Charlie Kirk.

Kirk, who was shot and killed last September while speaking at a campus event a Utah Valley University, co-founded the conservative non-profit organization Turning Point USA, which advocates for and promotes conservative politics among young people, particularly on college campuses.

Photos show that Kirk’s image has been displayed on the Department of Education building alongside banners honoring Catharine Beecher, a prominent 19th-century US educator and advocate for women’s education, and Booker T Washington, an influential educator and writer who championed educational opportunities for Black Americans in post-civil war America and became the first principal of Tuskegee Normal and Industrial School in Alabama, now Tuskegee University.

A banner next to the three figures reads: “Empowering our States to tell the Stories of our Heroes in American Education.”

The Department of Education said in a statement: “We are proud to honor visionary leaders whose contributions have shaped the future of education for generations.

“Their work reflects Benjamin Franklin’s timeless belief that ‘an investment in knowledge pays the best interest” she said, adding that “as our country marks a historic 250th milestone, this moment invites us all to join in the pursuit of fostering educational opportunity that empowers every learner to rise, contribute, and help shape a brighter future for generations yet to come.”

The banner featuring Kirk has sparked criticism as the commentator was a polarizing figure who had made incendiary and often racist and sexist comments during his career. Some users online also noted that Kirk had also called for abolishing the Department of Education as recently as last year.

Despite once calling the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 a “mistake”, describing abortion as “worse” than the Holocaust, and arguing that “it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights”, Donald Trump and his allies have praised Kirk as a “great American hero” and a “martyr” for freedom. In October, Trump posthumously awarded Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award.

The new banners follow the unveiling last month on the Department of Justice headquarters of a large banner of Trump’s face.