Imagine a prestigious Ivy League stage becoming a soapbox for advocating armed political action—and getting applause for it.
Fox News reported that in a 2018 panel at Harvard University’s Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights, a professor from another university promoted the idea of left-wing political violence, earning nods of approval from three Harvard faculty members, only for the video to vanish after controversy erupted.
Back in 2018, the Carr-Ryan Center hosted a discussion titled “You Don’t Stand Around and Let People Get Hurt: Antifascism After Charlottesville,” focusing on resistance to far-right groups.
The star guest was Dwayne Dixon, an Asian Studies professor from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who also belongs to Redneck Revolt, a far-left group described by the Counter Extremism Project as a “community defense” outfit opposing racism and fascism.
Dixon took the stage for about 30 minutes, painting his group as valiant defenders against neo-Nazis and White supremacists at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Notably, neither Dixon nor the Harvard panelists—Education Professor Timothy McCarthy, American History Professor Vincent Brown, and Professor Lisa McGirr—drew any clear line between extremist hate groups and everyday conservative Americans, a conflation that raises eyebrows about the scope of their rhetoric.
Vincent Brown, who introduced Dixon, seemed to set a provocative tone, stating, “Many of you are aware of the ongoing vigorous debate over whether it's OK to punch a Nazi.”
That quip, while perhaps meant as humor, hints at a troubling comfort with violence as a political tool—hardly the reasoned debate one expects from academia.
Professor McCarthy added fuel to the fire, suggesting that society faces an “emergent fascist moment” and that a mix of violent and nonviolent tactics might be necessary, a stance that feels more suited to a battlefield than a lecture hall.
Perhaps most striking was Professor McGirr’s reaction, admitting she arrived skeptical but left persuaded by Dixon’s justification for arriving armed at protests in Charlottesville and North Carolina.
Her shift in perspective, while candid, underscores a concerning willingness among some academics to entertain force over dialogue when confronting ideological foes.
Redneck Revolt, Dixon’s group, isn’t without baggage—sued by Charlottesville for violating an anti-paramilitary law after the 2017 rally, they avoided trial through a consent decree, a legal footnote that casts a shadow on their “heroic” narrative.
Fast forward to more recent times, and Dixon found himself on administrative leave from UNC after reports of his armed activism surfaced, with the university firmly condemning political violence in its statement.
The Harvard panel video? Conveniently pulled from the Carr-Ryan Center’s YouTube page after the leave was announced, though one wonders if the digital scrub can erase the lingering questions about what was endorsed that day.
Efforts by Fox News Digital to get comments from Harvard and the three faculty members on whether they denounce political violence were met with silence, as was an attempt to reach Dixon himself, leaving the public to ponder where these scholars stand on such a critical issue.
