Around 150 students, professors, alumni, and community members gathered in front of South Building on the University of North Carolina’s campus Wednesday to protest the university’s suspension of Asian and Middle Eastern studies professor Dwayne Dixon.
Dixon was placed on administrative leave on September 29 following reports that he was involved in antifascist organizing through a group called Redneck Revolt, an “anti-fascist, anti-racist community defense formation,” according to the group’s website (a pop-up on the website notes that the group officially disbanded in 2019). Redneck Revolt chapters were an offshoot of antifascist organizations known as John Brown Gun Clubs and were sometimes referred to interchangeably; Dixon told The Daily Tar Heel that he had left the Silver Valley chapter in 2018, before Redneck Revolt disbanded.
On September 27, Turning Point USA (TPUSA) spokesperson Andrew Kolvet called for Dixon’s firing on X because of Dixon’s prior involvement in Redneck Revolt. Last week, John Brown Gun Club members had allegedly posted flyers at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., that read “Hey fascist! Catch!” in reference to messages the alleged shooter of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk had written on his bullets, according to The Georgetown Voice.
After Fox News began reporting on Kolvet’s post and the Georgetown flyers, UNC told the network last week that it does not “monitor or comment on the lawful personal activities or political views of individual employees.”
It’s not clear what changed, but in media statements the university has now said it is investigating allegations against Dixon around advocacy of politically motivated violence and reiterated its “commitment to rigorous debate, respectful engagement and open dialogue in support of free speech.”
In 2017, Dixon brought a semiautomatic rifle to a spontaneous anti-Ku Klux Klan rally in downtown Durham. He was charged, but the charges were dropped, and he later told the INDY he would absolutely do it all over again. Dixon was also accused of assault by Patrick Howley, the former editor in chief of Big League Politics, a far-right media outlet. That charge was also dismissed.
Gina Balamucki, a UNC alum and lawyer who spoke at Wednesday’s event, said she thinks it is ridiculous to put Dixon on leave over the allegations.
“I am most concerned about the erosion of our right to speak dissent to power,” Balamucki said. “Dr. Dixon was a leader in that and he did it bravely. He did it responsibly.”
The ACLU of North Carolina has called on UNC to reinstate Dixon, calling the suspension an “unconstitutional retaliation against Dixon’s perceived political associations and viewpoints in violation of the First Amendment.”
Speakers representing several organizations, including TransparUNCy (a group started after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned affirmative action, which hosts teach-ins to discuss university politics and finances), the Workers Union at UNC, and Students for Justice in Palestine, spoke about Dixon at the protest.
TransparUNCy representative Christina Huang said the UNC administration has a history of similar behavior, citing UNC professor Larry Chavis who was surveilled and effectively fired for focusing on Indigenous issues in 2024.
“UNC administration is comfortable saying the quiet part out loud,” Huang said. “Previously, you would see admin cower behind bureaucratic rules and processes, but now they’re openly communicating to us and they are promoting a racist and fascist campus environment on the side of power, never justice. We know what kind of history they’re trying to uphold.”
Nyssa Tucker, speaking on behalf of the Workers Union at UNC, said that the decision has created a crisis of labor.
“Now over 250 students suddenly don’t have an instructor. By placing a professor on administrative leave, UNC-Chapel Hill is doing the far right’s dirty work and putting all its students and employees at risk,” Tucker said. “UNC-Chapel Hill’s message is clear: if a nongovernmental organization even so much as tweets, they will act, they will listen and act, seemingly without question.”
Comparative literature professor Elyse Crystall, a friend of Dixon’s, spoke about the importance of showing up for Dixon and against genocide in Palestine. Crystall is a faculty adviser to Students for Justice in Palestine.
“In the Jewish tradition, today is the holiest day of the year. I cannot imagine another way of spending it … defending justice and my friend Dwayne Dixon,” Crystall said. “We’ve been here before. We will be here again, I have no doubt.”
Robert Young, a freshman student who started circulating a petition to reinstate Dixon, which now has over 1,000 signatures, has never taken one of Dixon’s classes, nor have they ever met. Young held a sign during the rally that read “When you give an inch, they take a yard.” When he found out about Dixon, he says he immediately went out to put up flyers.
“Which seems ridiculous and irrational to do,” Young says. “But to me, it’s just so important that we don’t let professors just disappear from this campus. If we let them get away with this, it’ll be professor after professor after professor, and a true purge of academia that just lets this proliferate.”
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This story has been updated to include a statement from the ACLU of North Carolina.