A Rutgers University professor known for his scholarship on anti-fascism was prevented from leaving the United States for Spain on Wednesday night, hours after President Donald Trump held a White House event focused on cracking down on left-wing groups.
Mark Bray, a historian who published the 2017 book “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” said his family’s reservations were suddenly canceled as they attempted to board a flight at Newark Liberty International Airport. “‘Someone’ cancelled my family’s flight out of the country at the last second,” Bray posted on Bluesky. “We got our boarding passes. We checked our bags. Went through security. Then at our gate our reservation ‘disappeared.’”
Bray told The New York Times that the airline later rebooked the family for a Thursday evening flight.
“I may sound conspiratorial, but I don’t think it is a coincidence,” he said. “We’re at a hotel and we’re just going to try again.”
The attempted departure came as the White House moves to intensify scrutiny of left-wing organizations. According to Reuters, the Trump administration has launched a multi-agency effort led by senior aide Stephen Miller to target liberal nonprofits and activist groups it accuses of supporting political violence. That comes after the White House hosted a roundtable on Wednesday in which far-right influencers sought to link “antifa” to various acts of violence, as well as mainstream liberal organizations.
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Bray, who has taught courses on anti-fascism and terrorism at Rutgers, said he decided to relocate to Europe after receiving multiple death threats. His home address was posted online following the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Right-wing commentators and student activists have labeled Bray “Dr. Antifa” and circulated petitions calling for his dismissal, saying that his presence “puts conservative students at risk.” Bray told students earlier this week that he and his family would be relocating to Europe for the rest of the year and that his course on terrorism would be held via Zoom for the remainder of the semester.
“I’ve never been part of an antifa group, and I’m not currently,” Bray told the Times. “There’s an effort underway to paint me as someone who is doing the things that I’ve researched, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.”
Rutgers University declined to comment on personnel matters but said it remained committed to maintaining a secure environment “where all members of our community can share their opinions without fear of intimidation or harassment,” according to the Times.
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The Rutgers American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers union put out a statement of solidarity with Bray and his family.
“Turning Point’s attack is part of an escalating effort by the far right to suppress the speech, teaching, and scholarship of faculty who do not conform to their movement’s politics,” the statement read. “The bad-faith effort to frame Dr. Bray as a threat to students and to get him fired is an affront to Rutgers’ values of academic freedom, as well as to Turning Point’s self-proclaimed commitment to a culture of open debate,” it said, adding: “Silence in the face of these assaults will only embolden the far right.”
