An expert on anti-fascist groups who teaches at Rutgers University said he is fleeing with his family to Spain after getting death threats amid a campaign by the campus chapter of Turning Point USA and other conservative groups to get him fired.
Mark Bray, an assistant professor of history, on Thursday said that he made the move out of concern for his family’s safety after being falsely labeled as a member of antifa, a term used to describe far-left activist groups that oppose fascism.
“I do not have any affiliation with any antifa group and don’t plan to,” said Bray, who wrote the book Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, which documents the philosophy and tactics of militant anti-fascist movements in the US and around the world. He has taught courses on anti-fascism and terrorism at the university since 2019.
Photo: AP
Right-wing influencers and others began criticizing Bray on social media after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order late last month designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.
He said he moved his three classes online after he received a death threat late last month.
A petition calling for his removal from the university had been launched in the weeks following the assassination of the Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. Bray’s home address was revealed on social media.
The petition said he was an “outspoken, well-known antifa member” and referred to him as “Dr. Antifa.”
Bray said he learned of the petition calling for his ouster when Fox News contacted him for comment, adding that he has since received additional threats.
Rutgers said in a statement that it did not comment on personnel or student conduct matters.
The Turning Point chapter did not immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
Megyn Doyle, a Rutgers student and the treasurer for its Turning Point USA chapter, told Fox News last week that “when you have a teacher that so often promotes political violence ... we believe that it puts conservative students at risk for Antifa to come in.”
The group’s online petition now has a statement saying it does not support the harassment or doxing — collecting and publishing a person’s private or identifying information without their consent — Bray or anyone else.
Bray was previously the subject of public criticism over comments he made in news interviews in 2017, when he was a lecturer at Dartmouth College.
In an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, he said there were circumstances where violent self-defense is “a legitimate response” to violence by white supremacist and neo-Nazis.”
Bray told the New York Times earlier on Wednesday that “my role in this is as a professor. I’ve never been part of an antifa group, and I’m not currently.”
Bray said that what he is experiencing is part of a broad effort to shut down discourse on college campuses.
“This is an example of the Trump administration trying to conflate protest with terrorism and public scholarship in a university with extremism,” he said. “Ultimately, it’s manufactured outrage to create a boogeyman term to demonize protests.”
Bray plans to live in Spain and teach remotely for the current academic year, then hopes to be back on campus next fall.
He had planned to fly to Spain on Wednesday night, but said that shortly before takeoff, he was notified by the airline that his family’s reservations had been canceled. He and his wife, Yesenia Barragan, who is also an associate professor of history at Rutgers University, along with their two young children, flew out of the US for Spain early yesterday on another flight.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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