Join the Communists to Kick TPUSA Off ASU’s Campus!

A “turning point” in history is when a significant change occurs, when quantity is transformed into quality. For example, communists recognize the 1917 October Revolution as a turning point that proved capitalism’s mortality and showed which social force will drive the final stake in the system’s heart: the working class. Turning Point USA, on the other hand, seeks to prevent just such a turning point from happening in the world’s most powerful imperialist country.

According to its mission statement: “Turning Point USA is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 2012 by Charlie Kirk. The organization’s mission is to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government. Turning Point USA believes that every young person can be enlightened to true free market values.”

Launched in Chicago with the backing of billionaire Tea Party activists, TPUSA fully embraces right-wing identity politics. It appeals to capitalist apologists and propagandists who spread racism, transphobia, homophobia, and anti-immigrant xenophobia. These poisons, if consumed, pit working class people against each other instead of the real enemy, the capitalist class. The appeal of TPUSA for these propagandists is that TPUSA began as a nonprofit charity, offering huge tax write-offs and anonymity for financiers—a lucrative set up for all parties involved.

TPUSA has leveraged this financial overflow to spread its tentacles far and wide, including the creation of an online professor watchlist which is used to “warn” conservative students about professors who are allegedly hostile to far-right ideology or “harming” students with so-called LGBTQ propaganda. In reality, this is a doxxing hit list, with serious real-world consequences.

On October 14, multiple TPUSA members targeted, harassed, physically intimidated, and eventually assaulted Dr. David Boyles, an Arizona State University professor on their “watchlist” because of his sexuality and gender expression. They waited for him outside of his classroom and then, shoving a camera in his face, provoked him with homophobic questions and accusations.

🚨ASU Professor assaults TPUSA cameraman, caught on video 🚨

Our TPUSA Frontlines reporter tried to ask self-professed “sex education obsessed” queer ASU Professor David Boyles, a few simple questions. Refusing to answer, our cameras caught the exact moment Mr. Boyles assaulted,… pic.twitter.com/YJWBEzSgRx

— Turning Point USA (@TPUSA) October 13, 2023

Outnumbered and overwhelmed, the professor’s initial attempts to de-escalate and flee were of no use and he defensively shoved their camera out of his way. TPUSA’s “reporter” met this defensive measure with a violent shove from behind, slamming Dr. Boyles into the pavement and bloodying his face.

ASU President Crow has promised to “do all that we can to end the bullying and intimidation of our faculty members by Turning Point USA and to reduce threats against the members of the ASU community which arise from such actions.”

But it is ultimately up to ASU’s students, professors, and workers to ensure this disgusting queer-bashing and the organization that sponsors it are driven from our campus! Every one of us deserves a campus free of harassment and violence of any kind, regardless of sexuality or gender!

TPUSA uses its funding from billionaires to host their hit list website, which encourages reactionaries to carry out the kind homophobic violence witnessed at ASU.  They are now trying to do damage control by distancing their ASU club from the violent thugs who assaulted a professor. In defense of his minions, TPUSA’s founder and CEO, Charlie Kirk, claims the “reporter” who initiated the harassment “Used his constitutionally protected speech to ask a taxpayer-funded employee some simple questions.”

This is a laughable distortion of the right to free speech—a right won through revolution that protects citizen’s speech from curtailment by the government. It has nothing to do with instigating violence between people by provoking workers with misleading, homophobic, questions.

Last year in Minneapolis, TPUSA claimed they “infiltrated” our open-to-the-public Marxist School with a lone, secret spy guy, who surreptitiously recorded the proceedings. Instead of raising his questions or disagreements openly, in the spirit of open debate, this “brave individual” had nothing to say during the open discussions. Afterward, however, he used the footage to produce a video in which he and another TPUSA hack mocked and ridiculed our comrades with disgusting transphobic attacks.

In response to this most recent attack by these reactionary goons, Socialist Revolution has mobilized a united front of campus organizations and individuals who hate homophobia to kick TPUSA off of ASU campus!

We will arrive at the next TPUSA ASU club meeting on November 1, 2023 en masse, occupy their space with communists, students, and workers, and host a teach-in about LGBTQ struggle under the banner of “Kick TPUSA Out!”

We intend to send a clear message to these and all reactionaries: an injury to one is an injury to all! The capitalist class and ASU may let them off easy and give them a mere slap on the wrist since “boys will be boys!” But tens of millions of American workers and youth will never accept TPUSA. They represent a tiny minority. This mobilization will remind students and workers of our strength as a united force. United in struggle, workers can not only shut down entitled, billionaire scum like TPUSA—we can run the whole of society without them and their violence, oppression, and exploitation.