Office Depot is facing a wave of backlash — and even boycott threats — after employees at a Michigan store allegedly refused to print a poster honoring slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, igniting a viral controversy over free expression, corporate responsibility, and political fault lines.
The incident unfolded Friday afternoon at an Office Depot in Portage, Michigan, where the Kalamazoo County Republican Party had placed an order for a poster memorializing Kirk, who was assassinated earlier this week during an outdoor campus event in Utah. The group submitted the order online at 2:24 p.m., with plans to display the poster at a vigil later that evening.
But by 5:30 p.m., the print supervisor, identified by organizers as “Beryl,” reportedly called to say the order would not be completed. According to GOP attorney and activist Matthew DePerno, the employee described the poster as “propaganda” and canceled the job despite the group already paying $56.17 for the service.
DePerno quickly took the matter public, posting video from inside the store and a copy of the receipt to X. “Hey @officedepot @OfficeMax do you think this is acceptable?” he wrote, blasting the decision as censorship.
The story caught fire online within hours. The clip of the dispute quickly amassed more than 100,000 views, amplified by high-profile conservative accounts. “HOLY CRAP. A customer put in an order and paid for a poster for a vigil for Charlie. @officedepot REFUSED to print it because they said it’s ‘propaganda.’ WTF @officedepot?!” wrote the influential Libs of TikTok account.
Others joined in, calling for a national boycott of the chain. “Disgusted and disappointed at the local Portage, MI Office Depot that refused to print a picture of Charlie Kirk, for a prayer vigil tonight,” local resident Inga Springman posted. “I’m asking every American that sees this to boycott Office Depot. #boycottofficedepot.”
Another user, “Onedovealone,” echoed the sentiment: “They don’t want our business so let’s shut ’em down! Let’s put them mainstream!! We can do this!”
The controversy escalated as organizers scrambled to replace the order. According to DePerno, the group turned to a local FedEx store, where staff not only printed the poster but did so free of charge after hearing about the ordeal.
By late Friday night, Office Depot moved to contain the fallout. The company issued a formal apology, condemning the employee’s actions as “unacceptable and insensitive.”
“The behavior displayed by our associate is completely unacceptable and insensitive, violates our company policies, and does not reflect the values we uphold at Office Depot,” a spokesperson said in a statement to The Post. “We sincerely apologize to the customer affected and to our community for this regrettable situation. Upon learning of the incident, we immediately reached out to the customer to address their concerns and seek to fulfill their order to their satisfaction. We have also launched an immediate internal review and, as a result, the associate involved is no longer with the organization.”
Despite the apology and the swift termination of the employee, critics argued the damage was already done. “@officedepot could have learned something from this. Now they’ll learn something else,” one X user posted alongside the hashtag #BoycottOfficeDepot.
The controversy comes at a particularly charged moment. Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, was gunned down just days earlier while addressing thousands of students at Utah Valley University, in what investigators have called a politically motivated assassination. The shock of his killing has fueled both mourning vigils and heightened tensions in the already polarized political climate.
Against that backdrop, the refusal to print a vigil poster struck many on the right as not just poor judgment, but as emblematic of broader cultural bias in corporate America. To them, Office Depot’s employee had engaged in politically motivated censorship, effectively denying a grieving community the ability to memorialize a fallen leader.
Whether the boycott threats will translate into real consequences for the company remains to be seen. But the Portage incident underscores how even small-scale customer service disputes can explode into national controversies in the era of viral video and polarized politics.
For Office Depot, the stakes are no longer just about a canceled $56 print order — they are about public trust, corporate image, and how a single employee’s judgment call can ignite a firestorm that reverberates far beyond a Michigan strip mall.
