The fascist group Turning Point USA (TPUSA) held a speaking event at UC Berkeley campus on Monday, November 10. TPUSA was founded by the fascist ideologue and organizer Charlie Kirk. Kirk was assassinated last September, and this event was aimed at promoting him as a fascist saint and martyr. Kirk’s assassination was wrong and harmful, but that doesn't change the fact that he was a fascist.

This event was met by an angry, but overwhelmingly nonviolent, legal, and politically essential protest at UC Berkeley. This was organized by both on-campus student groups and political groups from the community, and it was a strong repudiation of TPUSA and fascism.

This righteous protest has now become a focal point of attack—from fascists, and many mainstream voices who are prettifying fascism. In keeping with their pattern of capitulating to this fascist regime in repressing student protest and speech, the University itself is joining in on the repression.

The hundreds of students and community members who chanted “Fuck you fascists,” "Fascists out of Berkeley" and "Trump Must Go Now" outside the TPUSA event were doing exactly the right thing. This overwhelmingly nonviolent protest stung the fascists politically, and powerfully demonstrated that they are very unpopular and don’t have control of the campuses. 

The attack on this protest by the Trump regime was spearheaded by Attorney General Pam Bondi who claimed that the protest was the work of “antifa,” characterized it as “violent riots,” and stated, “Look at antifa at Berkeley. That could be material support for terrorism.” “Violent riots” is a complete lie. “Antifa” is not an organization but an orientation toward opposing fascists, racists and other forms of injustice—but “antifa” has dangerously been officially designated by Trump as a “domestic terrorist organization.” When Attorney General Bondi uses the word, that means the power and repressive machinery of the government is being wielded to suppress and intimidate a broad swath of opposition. 

Bondi immediately launched an “investigation” of the protest by the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force. Harmeet Dhillon, assistant U.S. Attorney General, was in Berkeley a few days after the protest, “investigating” in her words “mob assault and thuggish intimidation of attendees…”

Local “mainstream” TV news and news outlets have also played a harmful role, presenting Kirk and TPUSA as if they were decent people, and joining in grossly exaggerating the “violence” of the protest. All this gave backing to the lies and threats being spread by people like Bondi. The local media painted TPUSA as if they're just "conservatives," instead of the backbone of a fascist movement. And few of the articles actually quoted one of Kirk’s many outrageous fascist statements. All this served to cover up and hide what was actually going on. Coverage like this objectively backs the government attack on the university and the protest.

Again, as we said up top, the assassination of Kirk was wrong and harmful. But that doesn’t change what Kirk actually was: a high-level leader and organizer of a fascist movement. The Trump regime is on a mad rush to strangle and suppress speech on campuses across the country, law and the constitution be damned. They want to use the murder of Charlie Kirk to lock down control of campuses where there is now some space for critical thinking and progressive political life. They see this as a key to controlling all of society. 

The fascists make a big deal out of how at times Charlie Kirk posed as a defender of open debate on the campuses—but the truth is that Kirk and TPUSA initiated a “Professor Watchlist” and online database to "expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom." The list has over 300 professors who have reported being doxxed, harassed, the targets of repeated death threats, and being fired. The only “free speech” these people are about is for their own fascist views, and they want to use the state to crush opposition views.

Part of why TPUSA and the fascists in general focus on Berkeley is because of the legacy of the Free Speech Movement (which happened in the fall of 1964 and played a big role in breaking open the student movement of the 1960s). The fascists want to rewrite and overturn the actual history of the Free Speech Movement. The Free Speech Movement was not just about free speech in general (although it was that) but also specifically involved and centered around the right of students to organize politically for/in support of civil rights—exactly the kind of civil rights which Kirk and his fellow fascists (above all, the Trump regime itself) have attacked and moved to gut. As the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has said, "The Trump MAGA fascists would have been on the side of the Confederacy in the Civil War, fighting to maintain, and expand, slavery." And these fascists are out to crush all those with ideas in opposition to this nightmare.

UC Berkeley claims as an institution to proudly uphold the Free Speech Movement. But instead of a spirited defense of free speech, and the activists under attack by a fascist government, what we have seen from the administration in the last days is shameful bowing down to the fascist assault:

• Outrageous arrests, felony charges and $10-20K bail have been leveled against four students who allegedly attempted to decorate Sather Gate with posters and an art installation (a cardboard bug) that opposed TPUSA.
• UC Berkeley spokesperson Dan Mogulof announced that the university will assist the Joint Terrorism Task Force "to identify the outside agitators responsible for attempting to disrupt last night's TPUSA event." Borrowing from the brutal history of the southern sheriffs attacking the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, Mogulof brands the Cal student groups and community groups like Jewish Voice for Peace involved in organizing the protest as “outside agitators”—when in the real world, Turning Point was packing Zellerbach Hall with MAGA fascists from all over California and beyond, who were brimming over with hatred of immigrants, LGBTQ people, and basic rights for women. 

This is a continuation and furthering of the UC administration’s blatant capitulation to Trump. Only a few months ago, the university caved in to Trump's demands to purge campuses of people opposing the genocide in Palestine. UC Berkeley admitted it turned in the names of 160 students, staff and faculty to the government’s office of Civil Rights for a witch hunt investigation of “antisemitism.” This is a violation of basic rights and the kind of critical thinking that universities are supposed to be about. “Antisemitism” in Trump-speak means anything critical of Israeli crimes. Right now purging campuses of this “antisemitism” is a cutting edge of suppressing critical thinking and disruptive protest in general. And campuses across the country have been leaned on hard to hand over names, and to allow the fascist Trump regime to dictate what can be taught on campuses. 

There have been protests against the shameful turning over of names at Berkeley and other places. These need to grow—and protests like the one against Turning Point need to be supported and the people and organizations now under fire must be defended. We need to demand that the university as an institution refuse to bow down to Trump/MAGA fascism.

The fascist moves to take over the campuses, and university administrators capitulation to this, must be fiercely opposed. This opposition must become part of the struggle to defeat the Trump regime. We support and urge others to support and join in the mass nonviolent protest in Washington, DC, initiated by RefuseFascism.org and now involving a growing coalition of organizations committed to not stopping until the Trump regime is forced from power.