FIRST ON FOX: Rutgers University is defending a professor who signed an online petition that seeks to disband the school’s Turning Point USA chapter from campus.
The Change.org petition launched earlier this week accuses the conservative group of “promoting hate speech and inciting violence against our community.”
While Change.org does not allow the public to view the list of signatories, each petition features a rotating “Recent signers” carousel near the top of the page.
While monitoring the “Recent signers” carousel, Fox News Digital noticed that Tia Kolbaba, an associate professor of religion at Rutgers, signed the petition to boot the right-leaning group.
“Rutgers University is committed to providing a secure environment — to learn, teach, work and research, where all members of our community can share their opinions without fear of intimidation or harassment,” a spokeswoman for the school told Fox News Digital in a statement. “Rutgers is committed to upholding the rights of students and faculty to free speech and academic freedom as fundamental to our community.”
“The university does not comment on specific personnel or student conduct matters,” the statement finished.
Kolbaba did not return a request for comment.
The petition began circulating less than a month after Turning Point’s founder, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated during a campus event at Utah Valley University. Kirk’s alleged killer is Tyler Robinson, who is said to have written “hey fascist, catch!” and left-wing slogans on shell casings.
A TPUSA member at the school slammed the petition on Wednesday.
“The petition to disband our Turning Point chapter is blatantly defamatory,” Ava Kwan, outreach coordinator for the Turning Point USA chapter at Rutgers, told Fox News Digital in a statement.
“The accusations of ‘inciting violence’ and ‘making threats’ are complete lies,” Kwan said. “The same people claiming we’re suppressing their free speech are actively trying to silence us for speaking the truth. It’s not just ironic, it’s hypocritical and absurd.”
The Turning Point chapter last week launched its own petition demanding Rutgers fire professor Mark Bray, whom they call “Dr. Antifa.” Bray is the author of “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” a book that openly calls for “militant anti-fascism.”
He has also been accused of being an Antifa financier, and noted in his book that, “at the very least 50 percent of author proceeds will go to the International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund which is administered by more than three hundred antifa from eighteen countries.”
Amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on Antifa, Bray announced this week that he and his wife are fleeing to Spain.
Bray said his address was doxxed, and his life was threatened, prompting the move.
The petition to remove TPUSA at Rutgers suggests the chapter was responsible for Bray “fearing for the safety of their family due to threats and harassment cultivated by this group.”
There is no evidence to support that claim, and Kwan dismissed it.
“Any opinion that challenges their worldview is immediately branded as ‘hate speech,’ a meaningless term weaponized to control dissent and protect their false narrative,” Kwan said. “The petition, Bray’s retreat abroad, and my own doxxing by unhinged Rutgers leftists all tell the same story: they know they’re losing.”
