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Faculty members at Columbia University and Barnard College have come out in support of Antifa-aligned Rutgers professor Mark Bray, publishing a joint op-ed defending him after he fled the United States citing safety concerns.
“We, the undersigned historians at Columbia University and Barnard College, write to express our profound dismay at the events involving historian Professor Mark Bray, a scholar of anti-fascist political movements at Rutgers University,” faculty members and affiliates of the Columbia and Barnard history departments wrote in a joint op-ed published in the Columbia Spectator.
The professors claimed that after Bray was “targeted” by the Rutgers chapter of Turning Point USA, he and his family began receiving death threats.
‘DR ANTIFA’ RUTGERS PROFESSOR ANNOUNCES MOVE TO EUROPE AFTER TPUSA PETITION CALLS FOR HIS FIRING
Mark Bray, a Rutgers assistant professor of history, and his wife, Yesenia Barragan, a Rutgers associate professor of history, wait in their hotel room in Newark, N.J., before a planned flight to Spain on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
“After he was targeted by the Rutgers chapter of Turning Point USA, Professor Bray and his family members received death threats, and his home address was circulated online,” the faculty wrote. “Afraid for his safety and that of his family, he and his partner, Professor Yesenia Barragan, a fellow historian who received her PhD from Columbia, left the United States with their children.”
Earlier this month, students at Rutgers’ Turning Point USA chapter launched a petition to remove assistant teaching professor Mark Bray, citing concerns over his past statements supporting Antifa.
Bray, who recently announced he was moving his family to Europe “for safety reasons,” has written multiple books defending anarchist and Antifa movements, including, “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” “The Anarchist Inquisition: Assassins, Activists, and Martyrs in Spain and France,” and “Translating Anarchy: The Anarchism of Occupy Wall Street.”
In “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” Bray noted that “at the very least 50 percent of author proceeds will go to the International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund, which is administered by more than three hundred antifa from eighteen countries.”
RUTGERS CONSERVATIVES WHO CHALLENGED ‘DR ANTIFA’ SAY THEY’RE BEING PUNISHED AS UNIVERSITY BACKS PROFESSOR
Rutgers professor Mark Bray, dubbed as “Dr. Antifa,” and TPUSA-students Megyn Doyle and Ana Kwan. (Ted Shaffrey/AP Photo; Rachel del Guidice/Fox News Digital)
In “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” Bray wrote, “Our goal should be that in twenty years those who voted for Trump are too uncomfortable to share that fact in public. We may not always be able to change someone’s beliefs, but we sure as hell can make it politically, socially, economically, and sometimes physically costly to articulate them.”
In the op-ed, the Columbia and Barnard faculty members wrote that “Violence should not exist on college campuses, and threats to physical safety have no place in an academic environment in which historians must be free to research, write, speak, and teach about their topics of expertise, including the history of the far right and the history of anti-fascist politics.”
“To intimidate historians who work on these subjects is to deprive students of the right to learn and to deny the public the insights of their scholarship,” the faculty added. “Protecting academic freedom requires calling out these attacks when we see them, expressing solidarity for colleagues targeted by them, and reminding our own campus that, as history itself teaches us, attacks on freedom anywhere are threats to freedom everywhere.”
Ava Kwan, Rutger’s TPUSA outreach coordinator, told Fox News Digital in a statement that the op-ed from Columbia is disingenuous.
“Columbia’s statement is, unsurprisingly, duplicitous and dishonest,” Kwan said. “Columbia is attempting to muddy the waters by implying we are responsible for alleged threats against Bray. If they were smart, they would consider that Bray may be fleeing the country due to fear of prosecution over aiding, abetting, financing, and retaining membership in a terrorist organization.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Columbia University and Barnard College for comment.
The op-ed from Columbia follows a growing pattern of Ivy League universities defending controversial left-wing professors under the banner of “academic freedom,” even as conservative students across the country say they face retaliation and censorship for expressing opposing views.
‘DR ANTIFA’ RUTGERS PROFESSOR ANNOUNCES MOVE TO EUROPE AFTER TPUSA PETITION CALLS FOR HIS FIRING
The pretty seaside town and natural bay of Calella de Palafrugell on Catalonia’s Costa Brava. (L) Mark Bray, a Rutgers assistant professor of history, waits in a hotel room in Newark, N.J., before a planned flight to Spain on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey; iStock)
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