Rutgers investigates TPUSA chapter behind petition against Antifa-linked professor

Rutgers University is investigating the campus Turning Point USA chapter after its leaders launched a petition calling for a professor’s removal due to what they describe as his defense of Antifa and political violence.

The petition describes history Professor Mark Bray as an “Antifa financier” and argues that his employment endangers conservative students on campus.

Bray is still teaching at Rutgers, but he left the country earlier this month after writing on BlueSky that he “received multiple death threats” and “doxing” after the petition gained publicity.

The university confirmed its investigation of the conservative student group in a statement Monday to The College Fix. However, it did not mention the petition or Bray.

Two Turning Point chapter leaders “were not properly registered as officers in accordance with university procedures and therefore were not involved in any organizational onboarding processes offered by the university,” the university stated.

“The university is reviewing this internally and working with the chapter to address the compliance matter and ensure the organization’s continued operations on campus, consistent with our approach to all student organizations,” it stated.

Meanwhile, the two student leaders, the same ones behind the petition, told Fox News over the weekend that Rutgers may remove them from their roles.

Ava Kwan, who said she also has been doxed, told Fox that she believes the petition is the real reason why she and leader Megyn Doyle are being investigated.

“Ava Kwan is a graduate, and I am a student from a different campus, so that is why they want us removed. We have not been notified why we have been investigated all of a sudden, and this has only been happening because of opposition towards Mark Bray,” Kwan said.

The Turning Point group’s petition at Change.org states that “with the current trend of left-wing terrorism, having a prominent leader of the Antifa movement on campus is a threat to conservative students.” It cites Bray’s 2017 book “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” in which he advocates “militant anti-fascism” and pledges that at least half of his proceeds will go to the International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund, according to the petition. 

The petition claims the fund “has supplied legal support to Antifa (suspected) members who were charged with terrorism and attempted murder at an ambush at an ICE facility in Alvarado, Texas.” 

“Why is Rutgers employing an advocate of political violence?” national Turning Point spokesperson Andrew Kolvet said in a statement posted on the Rutgers TPUSA Instagram earlier this month. 

Kolvet stated that Bray’s 2017 book advocates for doxing and even “weaponry” to “stop fascism.” He said Bray’s writing “pushes normalizing violence” against political opponents.

“One of our students was doxed and threatened but stayed put to defend TPUSA and their right to free speech,” he stated. “It was the coward Bray who fled to Spain.”

The Rutgers TPUSA chapter did not return The Fix’s requests for comment on the situation. Bray also did not respond to two emails asking for comment.

An attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression told The College Fix that Bray’s speech, while controversial, falls under First Amendment protection.

“The First Amendment protects core political speech, which is at the very heart of freedom of expression and where the First Amendment’s protection is at its zenith,” FIRE Faculty Legal Defense Counsel Zach Greenberg said in a recent email.

“While the university must address unprotected true threats and incitement to imminent lawless action, the First Amendment protects rhetorical hyperbole, the endorsement of violence, and the assertion of the moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force or violence. This ensures breathing room for the full and free discussion of public affairs,” he told The Fix.

Greenberg added that public universities “have dual obligations to protect both faculty expressive rights and campus safety” and “should work with law enforcement and campus safety to ensure professors are able to fulfill their duties.”

On Friday, the Rutgers University Senate passed a resolution in support of Bray that made a similar argument.

The resolution calls on university leaders to “communicate to the Rutgers community and the public that disagreement with the political, scholarly, or personal viewpoints expressed by faculty, staff, or students – absent any violation of law or University policy – shall not constitute grounds for disciplinary action or institutional disavowal.”

Bray also has defended his views. 

“I’m very clear that I identify as an anti-fascist. I am completely opposed to fascism. I’ve never hidden that, but I myself have never been part of an Antifa group, neither back then, nor currently, nor do I intend to ever be,” Bray told The Hill in an interview last week.  

“So, the effort to conflate me with my subject matter is ill-informed and disingenuous. I support anti-fascism, broadly speaking, but that’s the extent of it,” he said. 

Faculty at other colleges have rallied behind the scholar. 

“To our knowledge, this is the first case in recent memory of a historian who has fled the country after receiving death threats on account of the history that they teach. It represents not just an attack on Professor Bray and his family on a personal level but also on academic freedom in general …” a group of faculty at Columbia University and Barnard College wrote in an op-ed Thursday at The Columbia Spectator.

However, Doyle, the TPUSA chapter leader, told Fox News earlier this month that the group launched the petition because they believe Bray’s statements put students at risk. 

“We do not condone death threats, hate speech, or harassment towards anyone who opposes us. To suggest that we are responsible for making such threats is completely untrue,” Doyle said.

The petition to remove Bray argues that while its organizers “believe in free speech and the First Amendment,” Bray’s endorsement of “militant anti-fascism” crosses a line. It claims he “was previously fired from Dartmouth University for endorsing violence.” 

Meanwhile, another petition is calling for the disbanding of TPUSA at Rutgers. It calls Bray “a respected professor” and asserts that TPUSA “undermines the core values of respect, diversity, and inclusion.”

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