“We, the students of Rutgers University, are deeply concerned to learn that an outspoken, well-known antifa member, Dr. Mark Bray, is employed by the university,” Doyle wrote in the petition. “Dr. Mark Bray, whom we call Dr. Antifa, wrote the antifa handbook, which is a guideline to what he refers to as “militant anti-fascism.”
Doyle also suggested that Bray’s public comments were similar to “the kind of rhetoric that resulted in Charlie Kirk being assassinated last month.” In an update three days after she first posted the petition, Doyle said: “I do not endorse death threats, doxxing, or harassment and would not wish them on anyone, especially Mark Bray.”
Two days after the petition launched, Fox News ran a story about it on their website and quoted Doyle. Bray says he refused to provide a comment to Fox News, claiming that at the time the petition had fewer than 100 signatures. At the time of publication the petition had amassed almost 1,000 signatures.
“It seemed to me a bit odd to have a news story about a relatively small Change.org petition,” says Bray. “Fox News was trying to generate a story that would get clicks [and] when the Fox News story came out on Saturday, within a few hours I received another death threat and another threatening email that had my full address in it which very much disturbed me.”
Doyle, TPUSA, and FOX News did not respond to a request for comment.
At that point, Bray says, he and his family made the decision to leave the US and move to Spain. WIRED spoke to Bray on Monday as he was preparing to leave the US, and he said he had just received another death threat that morning, and his address was still getting posted online.
Scores of Bray’s former students have jumped to his defense. One of them tells WIRED that his classmates were “disappointed” that he was leaving the US.
