Dr. Mark Bray, a Rutgers University professor colloquially known as “Dr. Antifa,” has recently taken refuge in Spain after claiming his home address was exposed online, leading to threats against his family. Despite his current circumstances, Bray has previously described the act of doxxing as a valid strategy against political adversaries in his influential book.
Bray, who now conducts his history classes remotely from abroad for the New Jersey-based university, gained recognition with his 2017 publication, “Antifa: The Antifascist Handbook.” The book draws on insights from 61 interviews with anti-fascists from 17 countries across North America and Europe and presents doxxing in a supportive manner on several occasions.
Within the book, Bray highlights the perspective of Rasmus Preston, a Danish Antifa member, who regards doxxing as “a very important tool to create conflict within far-right movements” by imposing a “constant mental burden.” This endorsement is one of three positive references to doxxing in the text.
The book also recounts a case where Antifa Nebraska celebrated a “major victory” through doxxing. The group distributed thousands of flyers featuring the name, photo, and details of a political opponent’s alleged Nazi affiliations. This campaign reportedly led the individual to withdraw from college, erase his social media presence, and go into hiding.
On page 87, Bray quoted a Danish Antifa interviewee named Rasmus Preston, who said doxxing is “‘a very important tool to create conflict within far-right movements’ by causing a ‘constant mental burden.’”
In another instance, Bray relayed the story of Antifa Nebraska scoring a “major victory” by doxxing a political opponent, noting that the far-left group “printed thousands of flyers with his name, photo, and information on his Nazism and plastered them around town, forcing him to drop out of college, take down his social media, and go into hiding.”
The book offers an appendix where Bray invited his interview subjects to provide advice to fellow or prospective Antifa members. A source named Brett A advocated in favor of doxxing as one of many tools in Antifa’s political war.
“Ideally, you want a diverse squad with members who have different talents,” Brett said. “Some folks will be best used on the front lines in confrontations (usually strong, fit people who can fight if need be), some folks need to be really good with intel gathering (monitoring right-wing pages, doxxing, etc.), some folks need to be good at graphic design for flyer campaigns, some folks need to be well-versed in security culture, etc. The more diverse your organization is, the better equipped it will be at effectively organizing and staying safe.”
Brett alluded to another tactic supported in Bray’s book: violence.
Antifascism is not just one tactic, but many, and those include “combinations of physical confrontations, doxxing, infiltration.”
Mark Bray, a Rutgers assistant professor of history, and his wife, Yesenia Barragan, a Rutgers associate professor of history, wait in their hotel room in Newark, N.J., before a planned flight to Spain on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
Fascists are defined ambiguously as the “Far Right,” which Bray speculated could evolve into something worse than fascism. Throughout the book, though, he referenced the MAGA movement and opposition to the Trump administration.
Bray openly praised the violent riots in Ferguson, Missouri, after Michael Brown’s death involving police.
“Moreover, these riots pushed police brutality and black oppression to the forefront of the national consciousness in a way that ‘nonviolent’ tactics could not have achieved on their own,” he wrote. “Yes, most Americans were repulsed by the sight of looting and burning, but for once they were forced to take note of the scale of injustice. Subsequently, Black Lives Matter cultivated a very significant base of popular support despite having a ‘violent flank.’”
On page 64 of the book, Bray relayed the story of Italian Antifa groups Autonomia Operaia and Lotta Continua from the 1970s. He described those groups as “militants wearing ski masks and bandannas, armed with clubs, iron bars, Molotov cocktails, and sometimes handguns.”
He justified the groups’ violent outbursts with a talking point often used in far-left circles in the U.S. today.
Rioters celebrate as a business burns after it was set on fire following the grand jury announcement in the Michael Brown case on Nov. 24, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“While the expressed purpose of such marches may have been opposition to fascism, the state and the entire capitalist system were implicated in fascist violence, and therefore legitimate targets for widespread looting and property destruction,” Bray wrote.
The book later claims that “anti-fascism must necessarily be anticapitalist.”
Later, he described the Autonomen in Germany, a group descended from Autonomia Operaia. He fawned over the group for inventing black bloc, the now-ubiquitous black head-to-toe uniform Antifa groups wear worldwide.
He described a “direct action” where the group “dressed in black with their faces covered by motorcycle helmets, balaclavas, or other masks to create a uniform, anonymous mass of revolutionaries prepared to carry out militant actions, sometimes involving weapons such as flagpoles, clubs, projectiles, and Molotov cocktails.”
Censorship is viewed as a powerful tool in fighting the people Bray calls fascists, too.
His book roundly rejects free speech absolutism, and rages against “liberal anti-fascists” whom he characterizes as being too stalwart in their defense of open debate.
Antifa members in Portland, Oregon, in 2019. (Mark Graves/The Oregonian/via AP)
“When militant anti-fascists successfully deprive fascists or white supremacists of a platform to promote their agenda, ‘liberal anti-fascists’ often argue that shutting them down is counterproductive because it only gives them more attention.… Anti-fascists argue that any rhetorical benefit gained from such confrontations is outweighed by their reduced ability to disseminate it,” Bray wrote.
“Liberal anti-fascists,” Bray complained, have too much “faith in the inherent power of the public sphere to filter out fascist ideas, and in the institutions of government to forestall the advancement of fascist politics.”
Bray even briefly touched on internet censorship, which he favors.
“The Internet is a platform that anti-fascists cannot completely contest, though efforts to persuade Reddit and other forums to ban racist threads have borne some fruit,” he said.
The history professor fled the U.S. to Spain after President Donald Trump announced that he would designate Antifa as a domestic terrorist organization. After that, the Turning Point USA chapter started a petition to have Bray fired.
Multiple groups, including Rose City Antifa and the Proud Boys protest in downtown Portland, Ore., Saturday, June 29, 2019. (Dave Killen/The Oregonian via AP)
Bray said he received threats and was doxxed, prompting his move overseas.
He did not return a request for comment.
