“We Love Sharon McMahon” Billboards Line Highway Near UVU

A week after Utah Valley University canceled educator, author and podcaster Sharon McMahon’s planned commencement speech over backlash to her comments about slain right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk, her fans are publicizing their support. 

On Thursday, The Salt Lake Tribune reported that about 30 digital billboards reading “We Love Sharon McMahon”—often referred to as “America’s government teacher”—now line a 20-mile stretch of Interstate 15 near the UVU campus, where Kirk was shot and killed last September. 

In the aftermath of the shooting, McMahon made a now-deleted post listing quotes from Kirk, including comments about Black and Muslim people. The accompanying caption read, “These aren’t sound bites taken out of context. Millions of people feel they were harmed, and the murder that was horrific and should never have happened does not magically erase what was said or done.” 

After UVU announced earlier this month that it had selected McMahon as the speaker for its spring commencement ceremony, conservative activists and Utah politicians resurfaced her post and called on the university to cancel her invitation; U.S. Rep. Burgess Owens described UVU’s choice of speaker as “morally bankrupt.” 

In response to the backlash, the university canceled McMahon’s graduation speech last week, citing concerns. “Go ahead. Lie about me and call me names,” McMahon wrote in a post responding to her cancellation. “I’m still going to be over here trying to make the country more just, more peaceful, more good and more free.” 

The move also left many onlookers unsettled. 

“It was an attack on a woman who is intelligent and kind and does so much good on her platform,” Terra Cooper, who designed the billboard and helped organize the campaign defending McMahon, told The Salt Lake Tribune. Over the past week, she and the nonprofit Utah Parents for Teachers focused on turning despair into action, raising $4,000 in four hours for the billboard campaign. 

The billboards went up Wednesday, a week before UVU’s graduation ceremonies are slated to begin.

“The hope is that she knows there are many more of us here in Utah who love her, support her and are trying to push back against all the attacks and the rhetoric against her,” Sarah Parson, of Utah Parents for Teachers, told the newspaper.