An Antifa expert at Rutgers University says that he was forced to flee the US after receiving death threats from Turning Point USA activists.
The assistant teaching professor was branded “Dr Antifa” on a petition, which also claimed he was a “financier” for the left-wing movement while calling for him to be removed from the faculty at the New Jersey school.
Bray wrote a bestselling book named Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, which the petition on Change.org described as being “heavily regarded in communist and anarchist groups.”
The petition was launched in the weeks following the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Shortly after the shooting, Bray’s home address was revealed on social media, with the New York Times reporting that a flurry of death threats aimed at the Antifa expert flooded in thereafter.
One threat, seen by the Washington Post, included a vow to kill him in front of his students. The prompt led Bray to take his wife and two children to Spain. He says he will continue to teach his students remotely from Europe.
“My role in this is as a professor,” Bray said in an interview. “I’ve never been part of an antifa group, and I’m not currently.
“There’s an effort underway to paint me as someone who is doing the things that I’ve researched, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
The assistant teaching professor has worked at Rutgers since 2019 and says that he feels “so bummed” about not being able to “spend time” with his students.
Meanwhile, right-wing activists have cheered his flight from America. One described it as a “total patriot victory” on X.
However, many of Bray’s colleagues have slammed the petition launched by the Rutgers chapter of Turning Point USA as an effort to “suppress the speech, teaching and scholarship of faculty who do not conform to their movement’s politics.”
In a statement released by the American Association of University Professors, Bray’s colleagues also described the petition’s description of him as an “affront” to both “academic freedom” and “Turning Point’s self-proclaimed commitment to a culture of open debate.”
Antifa is a decentralized movement, with no distinguishable leadership or structure.
Included in the petition filed against Bray was a post made by the Antifa expert on the social media app Bluesky.
“I could say that antifa is neither ‘terrorist’ nor an ‘organization,’ but MAGA does not care about facts…this is just about mobilizing a broad label to expand repression and accelerate the march to fascism,” the post read.
Despite this, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to designate the left-wing movement as a “domestic terrorist organization.” He claims that “radical left rhetoric” has led to a spike in political violence.
Critics have branded the president’s order a “witch hunt against Trump’s political adversaries” and have pointed to the president's own comments about feeling “hate” for his enemies.
The Independent has contacted Mark Bray, Rutgers University and Turning Point USA for further comment.
