Below is my column in The Hill on the recent controversy at Rutgers University, where different groups are pushing to ban Turning Point USA and Professor Mark Bray, the author of the “Antifa Handbook.” The campus has become a microcosm of a broader debate in higher education, which continues to struggle with drawing lines on free speech and academic freedom. Notably, the faculty and the student body recently overwhelmingly voted to support Bray, but few have spoken out in support of the TPUSA group.
Here is the column:
Last week, faculty and students signed a petition to oust the local Turning Point student chapter from Rutgers University. The call followed a separate demand from the group to fire Rutgers Professor Mark Bray, the author of the “Antifa Handbook.”
As is often the case, both sides are portraying themselves as defenders of free speech while seeking to silence others.
Free speech is back in vogue on many campuses. Faculty members are suddenly aghast over threats to free speech after staying entirely silent for years as conservative faculty were purged from departments and conservative speakers were cancelled on campus. Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton, who supported censorship under the Biden administration, are even declaring themselves free speech champions.
The Rutgers controversies are a truly teachable moment on how free speech values demand more than supporting speech that you like. The test of principle is supporting the speech of those with whom you disagree, even those whom you despise.
Those of us in the free speech community are rarely called upon to defend popular speech. More often, we support the speech of those who not only hate free speech but hate us as well. Many of those we protect have worked to deny the free speech of others.
Soon after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I wrote how the way to stand with Charlie is to stand with free speech. Charlie was the target, not the proponent of cancel campaigns.
I was disappointed, therefore, when the Rutgers TPUSA members called for the firing of Bray. I have long been a critic of Bray. Indeed, I testified about Antifa before Congress, ran columns on the organization for over a decade, and wrote a book discussing Antifa. That has included years of criticism of Bray and his book.
Bray has long been a controversial figure in academia. In a 2017 Washington Post article titled, “Who are the Antifa?” Bray wrote, “Antifascists argue that after the horrors of chattel slavery and the Holocaust, physical violence against white supremacists is both ethically justifiable and strategically effective.”
Bray’s writings have rallied extremists to this cause for years.
One petition states that “Dr. Bray has regularly referred to mainstream conservative figures such as Bill O’Reilly as fascist while he calls for militant actions to be taken against these individuals. This is the kind of rhetoric that resulted in Charlie Kirk being assassinated last month.”
It also notes that Bray gives half of the proceeds from the “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook” to defending arrested Antifa members.
Despite such criticism, I oppose efforts to fire Bray. There is no evidence that Bray has ever engaged in violence or criminal conduct. He is an academic with clearly extreme views, but to fire him is to become no better than Antifa itself — the most violent and anti-free speech movement in our country.
In his “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” Bray explained how Antifa is made up mainly of “anarchists or antiauthoritarian communists” who believe that “‘free speech’ … is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”
Bray is now on the receiving end of a blind rage exactly like what Antifa has been unleashing against its targets for decades. He fled to Europe due to threats against him and his family. Whether you call it karma or irony, those who would thus intimidate him are no better than Antifa. His firing would be an assault on both free speech and academic freedom protections.
In the meantime, other Rutgers faculty and students are seeking to expel Turning Point. Their petition accuses Turning Point of “promoting hate speech and inciting violence against our community.” Professors, including Tia Kolbaba, an associate professor of religion at Rutgers, reportedly signed it.
These faculty members and students are demonstrating the same intolerance that long ago changed higher education into the ideological echo chamber it has become on the left.
Neither side is prepared to tolerate opposing views, and both believe that their rage is righteous, whereas the rage on the other side is dangerous.
Drawing the line on free speech rights is often a difficult one. In my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I argue for universities to focus on conduct rather than the content of speech. Occupying buildings, harassing students, destroying property, and shouting down speakers are forms of conduct that should be subject to suspension or expulsion.
Another professor this week has also raised questions over off-campus conduct. Elias Cepeda, a journalist and English Professor at Northeastern Illinois University, was arrested with a loaded firearm and a large amount of ammunition outside of the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois, the scene of violent protests.
Cepeda is a suspected Antifa member and has social posts calling ICE Nazis and calling for armed resistance. In response to Homeland Security posting about an incident of ICE officers being attacked by a man with a weed whacker, Cepeda responded, “First of all, the video you just posted showed your Nazi asses are lying. Secondly, we’d all be morally justified in taking your Nazi heads off with weed whackers.”
He recently declared, “There are things worse than a civil war.”
He has called for teachers to come armed to school to defend students from any ICE officers who show up. He then showed up armed at an ICE facility. He was later released.
If Cepeda committed a crime at the facility or made criminal threats, his conduct can and should be the basis for termination by the university. It is not clear what, if any, charges might be brought in the case.
Meanwhile, constitutional protections for speech do not mean that speech should not be condemned. This week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer supported the “No Kings” protests and declared that people should be “forcefully rising up.” Commentators like former CNN host Don Lemon called on minorities to get guns so that they can defend themselves against federal law enforcement officers.
This speech is knowingly inflammatory at a time of rising political violence. They are the same voices that we have heard in every “age of rage.” But that is the price that we pay for free speech.
The costs of the path chosen by many at Rutgers, however, are far higher. Yielding to our anger will place us on the slippery slope of censorship. We can survive with Bray teaching at Rutgers. We cannot survive without free speech.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the bestselling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Antifa foments violence. Writing their handbook promotes violence, which should not be considered “free speech.” Fire Bray.
BOOM
Short sweet and directly on target
Enough of this wordsmith distortion of reality.
Ok, but there’s a difference: Turning Point holds extracurricular events, Bray’s ideologies comprise his actual classroom material. One is not like the other. Bray is not entitled to keep a job in which he is not in keeping with the intent of that job. He can still publish and opine and crusade all he likes without it. Is he unwilling to admit the actual purpose of his pedagogy? Are students actually getting a return on investment from his instruction? Part of this equation is strictly pragmatic. It still may not be an obvious yes or no, but there is a false equivalency being made here.
I agree with the good professor.
@Upstate
I do too, in the strictest sense, but I stand by my comment regarding the difference between vocation and avocation. There is a difference between being silenced vs. being fired because one is a sh**ty employee. Spoken as one who has been fired over the course of their life, and who has also conversely had great success. 😂
Jonathon’s call for speech reflects something that sits at the heart of good lawyering: the ability to argue both sides of the case. How many times has he mentioned that there are good faith arguments on both sides of an issue? He’s right, and mastering that approach is a lifelong journey. And it rides on speech. One of the things this lawyer has seen over decades is the coming of age to mediation-alternative dispute resolution in civil cases-torts, contract, land title disputes and the like. By some, mediation, whether by agreement or order of the court, has resulted in settlement ending the need for trial in 50% of cases on the trial docket. Of the steps in mediation, parties and counsel gather around a table, face to face, human to human, and vent their grievances unrestricted from the rules of evidence for testimony in court. But hemmed in by not anonymous online. That gets the fire out of the belly and up onto the table. And with that, the rage. Measured by outcomes, a mediation mindset commends itself as a damper to the parasitic load of rage on speech.
The problems that currently exist on campus are directly linked to the likes of Bray and other educators. The administrations punished conservative educators to the point of firing them for their points of view. They inspired their students that “shouting down” was a form of free speech to prevent any kind of reasonable debate. The left has taught the rational that if they hope to exist the time to “go along to get along” is in the rear view mirror.
If i recall correctly Rutgers is a state university. Therefore firing Bray would violate free speech. Having said that actions by the university against TPUSA are equally unconstitutional. The Bill of Rights applies to state governments as well as the federal government. Therefore a state university cannot legally interfere with free speech.
He has a job description.
This is comparable to saying Hitler has his right to free speech and Anne Frank has her right to free speech. Like saying MLK has his right to free speech and James Earl Ray has his right to free speech. JFK has his right and Oswald has his right.
I am not a TP person, but their message is not to kill the people with whom they disagree while these supporters of ANTIFA do call for killing their opponents.
On the other point regarding free speech, as the left has said for years, you can have the right to speak but there are consequences. You cannot work delivering for Amazon wearing a pro-life shirt and you cannot teach kids calling for violence.
The phrase “Hoist on his own petard” comes to mind when discussing Mr Bray. He seems to have taken flight when he was doxxed and criticized and has left for Spain. Seems appropriate with all that he has preached that he would pack up and leave rather than stay and fight the “good” fight. So I assume he is also a coward. What a great example for young minds when the leader and high Chief of Antifa vacates the field under threat of those dastardly but very courteous Nazi’s from TPUSA.
He makes me think of Horatio Gates and his glorious ride after the battle of Camden.
“Despite such criticism, I oppose efforts to fire Bray. There is no evidence that Bray has ever engaged in violence or criminal conduct. He is an academic with clearly extreme views, but to fire him is to become no better than Antifa itself — the most violent and anti-free speech movement in our country.”
This is absolutely the wrong criteria for such a decision. The business of Rutgers is educating college students. Bray should be retained or fired based only on his effectiveness as an educator, and how well he fits the educational vision of Rutgers. Having said that, Rutgers needs to do some extensive self-examination to determine if its vision includes educating and preparing young adults to be Marxist activists. If that is the case, Bray should be retained, and every reasonable person (including parents of prospective college students) should shun the institution. If not, they should do extensive house cleaning, including firing Bray.
What a load of Chit Turley. Apples to oranges, Antifa is a seditious organization or philosophy based upon revolutionary ideas of communism and totalitarianism to overthrow our government through violence and murder while TPUSA is nowhere close to anything like that. How about The Anarchists Cook Book, we could put that in the school library too.
The real free-speech question is whether you support the right of people to doxx people like Professor Bray and Justice Kavanaugh. I don’t, and personally find it to be a form of assault. As to firing Bray, I don’t see a problem. You can still buy his book, and he is still free to say whatever he wants. That is what the 1st Amendment guarantees, not the right to be employed regardless of what you say.
JT, By supporting Bray you’re coming dangerously close to exhibiting suicidal empathy.
Prof. Turley – I am 100% defending he speech of both Kirk and Bray and anyone else.
I am also heartened that you are making clear that while the violent speech of some on the left is repugnant and deserves criticism, that it is also protected free speech.
I am going to diverge slightly on Firing Bray.
First we should eliminate ALL govenrment funding of education as it distorts education and all issues of rights in education.
But there is a difference between Brays right to say whatever he wants and his non existant right to a job.
I actually beleive that SOME broad diversity is good for colleges and we SHOULD have a few loons like Bray in our colleges. But that is about how to best run a college and that decision is up to college boards. At the same time pretty much all colleges are overrun with left wing loons.
Not only does the left massively dominate academia, one of the diseases of the left is their authoritarian control of their own members – so left dominance often shifts to complete intolerance of anything outside the far left.
My point is that the repair of our education system – which with certainty WILL happen,
is going to require firing ALOT of left wing nut professors.
To be clear I am not “demanding” the firing or Bray or anyone else.
Just noting that colleges are failing to do their job and a major reason is they have drifted too far left.
The free market will ultimately fix that on its own as long as Government stays out of it.
But staying out of it includes NOT subsidizing failure. Really not subsidizing at all.
One of the worst problems with government entanglements in the free market is that it undermines the free markets disciplining Failure.
Trump focuses on leveraging federal funds to terminate DEI programs and to purge colleges of racist nonsense. That is legitimately within the power of the president.
But what really needs done is for congress to cut off all funds to colleges.
Contra the left, this will not only improve diversity at colleges, but it ultimately will make them both cheaper and better – because that is how the free market works. Suppliers – such as colleges must continuously improve their product and reduce its cost to appeal to consumers and profit and as their competitors catch up or even go ahead – those profits get turned into reductions in price for consumers.
Regardless, colleges are failing – surveys are showing a dramatic decline in the value people place on a college education. That inherently means fewer people will attend college and it means they will be pickier about the value that they get from colleges.
All that is required to radically diminish the power of the left in colleges is for donors, parents and students, to expect colleges to deliver value to them.
Nutjob…
“… those profits get turned into reductions in price for consumers.”
No, they don’t. Those profits get turned into stock buybacks and investments in the stock market. Not for price reductions. Why would they reduce prices when they are making a profit from their current prices. Boards will want to increase profits by raising prices and they will do so as long as government student loans are guaranteed.
State universities exist because higher education was once all private and out of reach to the majority of people. State universities used to be cheaper when states funded the majority of university and colleges. That’s no longer the case. The percentage of state money to college and universities has been reduced to less than half. To make up for that tuition has risen.
Private colleges and universities are still more expensive than state universities. Why aren’t they reducing tuition to attract more students? Free market philosophy would dictate private schools offer lower tuition to compete and attract more students. Why has that not happened?
Most private colleges have no intention of growing larger.
My alma mater, CalTech, was much more famous when smaller than after it grew larger.
Free speech absolutely? Examine Adolphus Hitler’s free speech coupled with an unusual charisma and grand oratory that had the ability to carry him into the heights. Beware such people and their helpers.
Cory Booker and others practice their grand oratory? Be wary…
If you call for violence, threaten violence or similar destruction or use violence, you are very different than those who say love thy neighbor, but want protection from those who call for, threaten and use violence. If TP has been actually intimidating a professor, not just calling for his expulsion, shame on them too. But that’s so contrary to their creed, I’d like to see examples before I believe. I trust the Professor, but that sounds exaggerated. Antifa is a terrorist group. It doesn’t belong on a campus.
There are laws on the books such as incitement that can be applied. I think the DOJ has shown great restraint with these idiots. I believe they should identify them and gather enough evidence to put them away for a good while to reconsider their revolutionary ideas. Give them what they want, true tyranny.
I remember when Democrats were apoplectic over someone calling ATF agents “jack-booted thugs”. My, how times have changed.
TPUSA does not urge others to commit violence, or justify it. There is a huge difference here, professor.
The clash between Antifa and TPUSA hinges on their pursuit of certainty, each in their own way. Antifa seeks a rigid, non-secular certainty, viewing issues as black-and-white. TPUSA yearns for the certainty of a bygone secular world rooted in Christian principles. This tension has also impacted the church. For centuries, science provided the clarity and absolutism we desired, coexisting with Christianity. Now, non-secular science, via quantum physics, asserts that our world is defined by uncertainty itself. This has become subconsciously intolerable for many, and extreme views result.
Did you deliberately invert the meaning of secular ?
The modern left is without any doubt a religious cult.
More wackjob crazy …
The party of hate strikes again.
_____________________________
Marxist at ‘No Kings’ Protest Who Called for Murdering ICE Agents Is, of Course, a University Staffer.
More stupid from …
Stupid yes. It’s a shame the left is full of hateful & stupid folks
“More stupid from …” the party of hate, rage and for calling for violence and murder. They had a protest day this past Saturday. Mostly old white folks showed up.
We don’t yet know whether Bray was more deeply involved more deeply in Antifa’s violence.
Yes, most innocent people always pick up their family and flee to Europe…rather than disassociating themselves with anarchists.
Abbey Hoffman
Thank you for this, Professor Turley!