Rutgers backs professor tied to Antifa, targets opposing students

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — Turning Point USA Officials at Rutgers University are speaking out on this issue as university officials try to remove them from leadership roles and the school senate votes overwhelmingly to support pro-Antifa professor Mark Bray.

“The message we want to send to students all over America is that we need to speak our minds now,” Ava Kwan, the department’s outreach coordinator, said in an interview with Fox News Digital on Friday.

On Friday, the Rutgers University Senate voted 110-4 in favor of adopting the “Supporting Resolution.” Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression“In support of Mark Bray, author of “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” who has faced opposition for his pro-Antifa rhetoric.

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“This is a time to stay true to our beliefs and speak the truth,” Kwan said. “So I think this is a time when conservative students all over America need to start speaking out. It’s time for us to speak our truth. It’s time for us to be bold in our beliefs, and that’s exactly what we’re doing here at Rutgers.”

“The only way to make a difference is to speak out, start with a petition, and start addressing those concerns before a Rutgers administration like ours tries to take you down,” Rutgers student and Turning Point USA chapter treasurer Megyn Doyle told Fox News Digital in an interview.

Kwan and Doyle currently face the possibility of being removed from their TPUSA leadership roles; The issue only came to light after the pair started a petition calling for Bray to be sacked.

In an email obtained by Fox News Digital, Rutgers director of student engagement and leadership Karima Woodyard said Doyle and Kwan should be removed from their civil servant positions and a new election should be held.

Woodyard argued that neither Doyle nor Kwan were fit to serve as officers, according to the email sent Monday.

Doyle earlier this month started a petition Mark Bray’s dismissal, citing concerns about his past statements supporting Antifa.

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Mark Bray, an assistant professor of history at Rutgers, waits in a hotel room in Newark, N.J., before a scheduled flight to Spain on Oct. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

Bray, an assistant professor at Rutgers, has written numerous books defending the anarchist and Antifa movements; these include “Anarchist Inquisition: Assassins, Activists, and Martyrs in Spain and France” and “Translating Anarchy: Occupy Wall Street Anarchism.”

In previous online posts, Bray expressed strong support for “antifascism” in a speech. October 4th post “It’s true that the law sometimes holds Trump back and provides us with a kind of security. But the more we lean on the law as our shield, the more powerful a sword the law will become when Trump twists it to his advantage and uses it against us. Only mass antifascism, legal or not, can save us,” he said of Bluesky, a social media app popular with liberals.

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In “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” Bray wrote: “Our goal should be that those who voted for Trump in two decades are uncomfortable sharing that fact publicly. We may not always be able to change someone’s beliefs, but we can certainly do so politically, socially, economically, and sometimes physically costly to speak them out.”

Bray recently announced that he would be moving his family to Europe “for security reasons.”

Doyle told Fox News Digital that opposition to them appears to be linked to opposition to Bray.

At left, the seaside town of Calella de Palafrugell on Catalonia’s Costa Brava and Mark Bray, an assistant professor of history at Rutgers. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey; iStock)

“The head of student engagement wants us removed from our positions because of our student status,” Doyle said. “Ava Kwan is a graduate and I’m a student on a different campus, so they want us suspended. We weren’t informed why we were suddenly being investigated, and it’s just because of opposition to Mark Bray.”

“He claims that we are unfit to retain our positions due to a technicality in our students’ situations,” Kwan added. “This is completely unfair. Before this whole situation, there was no issue with Megyn and I retaining our positions on the board. So this is clearly a politically motivated move, and what appears to be a clear application of procedure is a selective application of procedure. And it’s completely unfair and completely unfair.”

Exposed on platforms like Reddit, Kwan said he was an advocate for free speech but felt it was necessary to take action given Bray’s ties to Antifa.

“Of course we want different values, we want different beliefs, we want to have conversations with people,” Kwan said.

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“That’s what the First Amendment is all about. We want to have conversations with people. But Mark Bray took it a step further,” he added. “He supports political violence. He supports preemptive political violence against those he thinks and believes is justified. We don’t feel safe on campus around him. We don’t feel safe about his appointment to Rutgers. We also don’t think it’s fair that his salary is funded by New Jersey taxpayers.”

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Rutgers said: “Turning Point USA is a recognized student organization on Rutgers University’s New Brunswick campus. Like all student organizations, it is expected to operate in accordance with our stated policies and procedures.

“The university found that two individuals who publicly identified themselves as officers of the TPUSA unit were not properly registered as officers in accordance with university procedures. Additionally, these individuals do not meet the eligibility requirements for officer positions in an undergraduate student organization in New Brunswick.

“The university is reviewing this internally and is working with the department to address the compliance issue and ensure the institution’s continued operations on campus, consistent with our approach to all student organizations.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to Bray for comment.