A Version of Antifa on Campus

Bad news from the Chronicle of Higher Education: the anti-fascist movement, still very small, is organizing on campus, recruiting faculty, students and administrators, and making an improbable bid for respectability. Under the mild headline, “Faculty Members Organize to fight ‘Fascist’ Interlopers on Campus,” reporter Nell Gluckman says the recruiters are not explicitly aligned with the violent thugs of “Antifa,” but decline to oppose or condemn them and share the same attitude toward violence (very useful).

Mark Bray, a Dartmouth lecturer and a member of the campus movement, has defended Antifa’s violent tactics, recently explained in The Washington Post, “Its adherents are predominantly communists, socialists and anarchists” who believe that physical violence “is both ethically justifiable and strategically effective.” Mark Thiessen of The Post comments: “In other words, they are no different from neo-Nazis.”

Last weekend in Berkeley, Antifa thugs attacked peaceful protesters at a “No to Marxism in America” rally, wielding sticks and pepper spray, and beating people with homemade shields. Mark Thiessen reported that one peaceful protester “was attacked by five black-clad Antifa members, each windmilling kicks and punches into a man desperately trying to protect himself.” Members of the Berkeley College Republicans were then stalked by Antifa goons who followed them to a gas station and demanded they “get the [expletive] out” of their car, warning, “We are real hungry for supremacists and there is more of us.”

Violence, Bray insists, is not the preferred method for past or present Antifa—but it is definitely on the table. He quotes a Baltimore-based activist who goes by the name Murray to explain the movement’s outlook:

You fight them by writing letters and making phone calls, so you don’t have to fight them with fists. You fight them with fists, so you don’t have to fight them with knives. You fight them with knives, so you don’t have to fight them with guns. You fight them with guns, so you don’t have to fight

Bill Mullen, an English professor at Purdue University and David Palumbo-Liu, a comparative-literature professor at Stanford University, formed the group last spring.

“We will defend the targets and victims of fascism, defend Muslims, immigrants, Jews, and LGBTQ people who typically come under attack from these forces,” Mullen said. The 400 members receive regular communications from the network and are encouraged to share information about what’s happening on their campuses. There is a vetting process to join; Mr. Mullen said the group wants participants who are connected to a college and committed to countering fascism.

Comments about Antifa made by Mark Bray appeared in a Campus Reform article along with a statement by Philip J. Hanlon, the Dartmouth president, who said that the college does not support violent protest. On Wednesday the Campus Anti-Fascist Network released a statement asking Mr. Hanlon to withdraw his statement and throw the institution’s support behind the lecturer’s work. So now the colleges and universities, slow to acknowledge an obvious right such as free speech, are now forced to address the problem of a pro-violent network trying to take root on campus.
Photo of Antifa at Berkeley: Basednormie