As the news spread of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination two weeks ago, a student in Professor A.D. Carson’s “Black Voice” class made sure the room door was locked.
The University of Virginia professor had told them in passing that he was on the Professor Watch List, a website created by Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit co-founded by Kirk.
“I’m kind of desensitized; I’m used to whatever that threat might be,” Carson said. “But of course they aren’t, nor should they be.”
Kirk, free speech, and far-right conservatism weren’t on the syllabus, but the students had questions and needed to talk. As a professor who has spoken publicly about race and inclusion, Carson was a likely candidate for the list. He was added in 2024 for his comments on political commentator Ben Shapiro’s rap feature about being conservative, according to his profile on the site. Carson’s remarks in UVA’s student newspaper about songs that have charted are also mentioned. His profile includes his title at UVA, a photo of him, and his quotes from the media.
Still, Carson brushed it aside. But the students just wouldn’t let him move on.
“I don’t want to take us off topic, but I really wonder what you think about all of the stuff that’s been happening with the shooting at Utah Valley University,” Carson recalls a student saying.
“OK, let’s go into this slowly,” Carson thought to himself. He didn’t want the class to feel obligated to pity him, but he also wanted to be upfront with them.
Carson is one of more than 300 professors on the Professor Watch List. The website is dedicated to documenting professors who have spoken about anything the far right deems “radical.”
In the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination on Sept. 10, Capital B spoke to several professors targeted by the far right. Like Carson, they remain on high alert, but the threats haven’t stopped them from creating spaces for students to speak freely about controversial topics. Yet, the professors’ supporters still have major concerns: What does safety look like off campus, and how is free speech protected on college campuses in the aftermath of Kirk’s death?
“Even though those people supporting those kinds of things expound free speech, I don’t think a professor watch list is put together so people can practice free speech at all,” Carson said.
In class, they’re discussing race, music, and the ability to engage in these kinds of conversations through sound and music. The class discussion moved toward how people were allowed or not allowed to engage publicly in language after Kirk’s death.
Who protects Black professors on campus and beyond?
Carson’s desensitized feelings toward threats date back to his pursuit of a Ph.D. in rhetorics, communication, and information design at Clemson University in 2017. He submitted the rap album “Owning My Masters: The Rhetorics of Rhymes & Revolutions” as his doctoral dissertation. Back then, several people at the university tried to discredit his dissertation because it was presented in a rap album instead of the traditional format.
Professor A.D. Carson of the University of Virginia. (Courtesy A.D. Carson)
“Ain’t none of that [criticism of his work] new,” Carson said. “But for them [the students], they want language and space to be able to ask questions about what is happening rhetorically that precedes that violent event, but the stuff that’s happening in the very short time since it happened.”
The Professor Watch List is one example of how the far right has targeted professors and faculty members with opposing views.
Sharon D. Wright Austin, a political science professor at the University of Florida, said she’s been on the watch list since 2022. For years, she’s received emails from those who disagree with her, many of them containing racist ideology.
“As a person who is in Black studies, who also does Black politics, I get things like that all the time,” Austin said. “That’s just a part of the job. When you’re a public intellectual, usually your university wants you to speak out.”
While universities encourage their faculty to engage in political commentary, Austin said, you’re bound to offend someone with your opinions and what you say.
She’s unsure if the watch list has specifically drawn attention to her, but she does find the accusations on the website “troubling.”
“It’s accusing people on the list for having a bias or discriminating against conservative students,” she said. “That’s really troubling to me because I even welcome conservative students in my class simply because I like the perspective they bring.”
Austin said she usually doesn’t give her opinion in class, so students typically have no way of knowing what she’s thinking.
While she can’t pinpoint if the list has brought increased attention to her, she is often a target of the right’s harassment, with several people sending hateful emails and letters to her.
She does recall when the university, located in Gainesville, Florida, banned Thomas John Kelly in 2017 for repeatedly harassing her and others when she was the director of the African American Studies program. Kelly, who was 54 at the time, was not a student or faculty member at the university. He would show up to campus with professors’ faces on a cart, Austin said, and repeatedly send emails to faculty.
It was a small office located in an isolated area of campus with only one entrance, which also served as the exit.
Kelly walked into the office one morning while Austin was with her program assistant at the time and went on a tangent, saying racist things like how Black women were taking opportunities from white people, Austin said.
“He had the door blocked,” she said. “We couldn’t get out, and he just kept rambling and rambling.”
The assistant texted someone else to call the police, but Austin said the police refused to come in and asked them to come out. Eventually, Austin and her assistant had to push past the man.
Later, the university installed a panic button for Austin’s office.
Kelly was banned from the campus for two years, but the ban was lifted because it was determined he had exercised his right to free speech.
Targeted professors motivated by purpose, not fear
After Kirk’s assassination on the Utah campus, confusion and anger spread throughout the country, with several threats made to college campuses.
Historically Black colleges and universities received terrorist threats the day after Kirk’s death, causing a series of campus lockdowns.
Stacey Patton, a Howard University professor and author, opened up on social media about the impact that being on the Professor Watch List had on her and the university.
“They overwhelmed the university’s PR lines and the president’s office with calls demanding that I be fired,” she said on Facebook. “The flood was so relentless that the head of campus security reached out to offer me an escort, because they feared one of these keyboard soldiers might step out of his basement and come do me harm. And I am not unique.”
The post has now been shared over 25,000 times and reposted across several other platforms. Since then, several professors, many of them Black women, have come out to talk about the attacks they’ve received from the far right.
Vincent Adejumo, an author and public lecturer of Black studies, said this moment feels almost like a reverse psychology on Black professors. Adejumo believes no one should die for their beliefs the way Kirk did, but he also doesn’t think Black people should be under attack for the right-wing activist’s death.
“As soon as it happened, guess what? Black institutions, HBCUs, were threatened even though Black people had nothing to do with that, absolutely nothing to do with that,” Adejumo said.
Adejumo spoke about Patton’s viral social media post and how she and other professors are being targeted for sharing their experiences.
“What sucks is people have the right to express if they agree or disagree with [Kirk],” he said. “But this thing of about-facing to Black people: You see Black teachers being fired. I think white society has been waiting to place itself as a victim of something.”
Adejumo said the victim mentality from the far right puts Black people in a dangerous situation. For folks like Patton, they have campus police who could escort them to their cars, but what about off campus, Adejumo questioned.
He recently wrote The Return of Black Nationalism and the Death of White Supremacy, a book that calls for Black nationalism, which he said is different from white nationalism.
The Black nationalism Adejumo discusses in his book is rooted in unity, he explains, emphasizing education, the promotion of more Black-owned businesses, and efforts to reduce reliance on agencies where Black people are in the minority.
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