Collective organization against the far right is not an option but a historical necessity. Professor Mark Bray’s decision to leave his own country due to threats is a grave warning. His case transcends the defense of academic freedom: it is the practical result of a state policy that produces this kind of direct attack on our fundamental right to organize politically against the rise of repression and authoritarianism.
The petition by Turning Point USA (a conservative political organization founded by Charlie Kirk, with strong activity on U.S. university campuses) demanding the dismissal of Mark Bray from Rutgers University is an act of pure political censorship, meant to erase from classrooms and academic research any analysis other than the distorted version promoted by the far right and the ruling classes.
The accusation against Mark Bray is a dangerous farce. They are not targeting a “leader” of Antifa, because they know as well as we do that Antifa is a broad movement — a practice of resistance, not a structured organization. What they are truly targeting is the knowledge and political organizing power of the working class. Mark Bray is dangerous to them because he documents, explains, and legitimizes the long history of antifascist resistance.
This attack was only made possible by the witch-hunt atmosphere sanctioned by Donald Trump’s executive order, which criminalizes an entire ideological spectrum. This is not a security policy; it is a declaration of political war with a dual purpose.
First, by labeling antifascism as “terrorism,” the state and the far right seek to justify repression against any form of direct action, militant protest, or organization of the oppressed classes that rises up against them. It is an attempt to turn legitimate political and physical self-defense against the repression of the ruling classes and their armed defenders into a criminal act. They want us to passively accept their rhetoric of hate and their violence, under the threat of being treated as terrorists.
Second, to destroy solidarity and isolate individuals. The narrative that “left-wing rhetoric” led to the assassination of Charlie Kirk is a trap. It is an attempt to collectively blame a movement for the act of an individual — a principle they never apply to themselves. Meanwhile, when a neo-Nazi murdered Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, the blame was individualized. This selective logic is meant to divide us, make us fear one another, and silence us through panic.
The claim by the group organizing the petition that Mark Bray is a “threat to conservative students” is the most cynical of all. The real “threat” he represents is intellectual: he equips his students with the understanding that fascism and the ruling classes can be fought — and that ordinary people have always organized to do so.
When Megyn Doyle’s group (treasurer of the Rutgers branch of Turning Point USA) invokes “freedom of speech” and then demands Bray’s dismissal, they expose their real project: freedom of speech only for themselves. Their “consequence” for dissenting thought is unemployment, exile, and intimidation.
Mark Bray’s forced exile is not an exclusively American phenomenon: it is an international tactic, mirrored in several similar episodes in our own Brazilian reality. It is not hard to see the same mechanisms of persecution in actions like the “Escola Sem Partido” movement, which under the false mantle of “neutrality” sought to criminalize teachers who dared to promote critical thinking in the classroom — or in the systematic attacks by far-right groups against humanities departments in public universities. Just as Mark Bray is accused of “indoctrination” for studying antifascism, our educators are threatened and prosecuted for teaching about the military dictatorship, gender issues, the theory of evolution, or the nefarious legacy of slavery. The narrative is the same: turning knowledge into a threat, historical analysis into advocacy, and legitimate political organization into a police matter. What is happening in the U.S. is a version of the same ideological war that seeks, here and around the world, to silence any voice that rises against the hegemony of reaction.
The persecution of Mark Bray is one chapter in a broader offensive against the left and the oppressed classes. It is a warning that the state and reactionary forces are willing to use the machinery of repression to eliminate opposition. Defending Mark Bray means defending the right to study and teach about liberation movements. It means defending the right to donate to solidarity funds that pay legal fees for activists. Above all, it means defending our right to organize collectively to confront and defeat the advance of capitalist domination — wherever and whenever it arises. Bray’s exile is the prelude to what they desire for our entire movement. We cannot allow it!
Full solidarity with Mark Bray and with the social movements of the oppressed classes in the United States against the far-right escalation.
Organização Socialista Libertária
October 2025