David Boyles was standing alone outside an Arizona State University building this month when someone from Turning Point USA approached, trailed by another person with a camera.
I believe that criminal offenses occurred and people should be held accountable.
Michael Crow, Arizona State U. president
“When did you decide to get obsessed with sex education?” the man from Turning Point asked, according to a video that the group later posted on social media. Boyles started walking away and did not stop as the questions grew more hostile and the camera kept rolling.
On surveillance video released by the university, Boyles, an English instructor, can be seen making a grab for the camera. The Turning Point man then pushes Boyles to the ground from behind. A photo posted later shows bruises and dried blood on Boyles’s face.
The incident was not the first time that Turning Point, a right-wing group that advocates a Trump-brand of conservatism on college campuses through local chapters, has made headlines at Arizona State. But it has provoked an uncommonly biting response from the university’s longtime president, Michael Crow.
“It is astounding to me that individuals from Turning Point USA would wait for an ASU instructor to come out of his class to follow him, harass him and ultimately shove him to the ground, bloodying his face,” Crow wrote in a letter to the campus after the incident. “Cowards that they are and so confident in the legality and appropriateness of their actions, the Turning Point USA ‘reporter’ and ‘cameraman’ then ran away from the scene before police arrived. This is the kind of outrageous conduct that you would expect to see from bullies in a high school cafeteria.”
In an interview with The Chronicle, Crow went even further, suggesting that the two men from Turning Point USA should be prosecuted for hate crimes. ASU’s police department is investigating but had yet to release a report as of Monday.
“I watched the video and talked to the victim,” Crow said, of Boyles, who is queer and an advocate for LGBTQ+ youth and founder of Drag Story Hour-Arizona. “I believe that criminal offenses occurred and people should be held accountable.”
While Crow said he wasn’t sure if charges would be filed, he said he saw the scuffle as an attack on a faculty member that was “based on their identity and their free speech.”
Turning Point USA did not respond to a request for comment.
Last month, Crow asked Turning Point USA to remove ASU faculty members from its “Professor Watchlist,” a project that claims to expose professors who discriminate against conservative students. The watchlist is infringing on free speech, Crow wrote, “by creating an environment in which faculty members who are listed on the website are harassed, insulted, and otherwise overwhelmed with email and social media engagement by readers.” If Turning Point would not remove ASU professors from the list, Crow said he wanted to be added to it.
Several faculty members at ASU said they found Crow’s comments about Turning Point to be refreshingly direct and supportive. He is a powerful figure in the state, one said, and people look to him for leadership beyond the campuses he oversees.
“We very, very much appreciate his taking such strong stances,” said Greg Stone, an associate professor of psychology. As president of the University Senate, Stone said he supports a proposed resolution affirming Crow’s positions.
At the same time, some faculty members and students want to see more than statements. They say the violence against Boyles was predictable and they want concrete steps taken to keep people safe. For one, they want Turning Point to be banned from campus.
“This campus group and TPUSA nationally need to be removed,” said Laurie Stoff, a teaching professor and member of the honors college faculty. “They have forfeited the right to engage in civil discourse with their behavior.”
Crow said the two people in the surveillance video would not be allowed back on campus, but he declined to comment on whether the group or its ASU chapter would be banned, citing the continuing investigation.
The conflict between Turning Point and Arizona State dates back to February, when Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, and Dennis Prager, a conservative talk-show host, spoke at an event hosted at the T.W. Lewis Center. The center is part of Barrett, the Honors College at ASU. Most Barrett faculty members signed a letter opposing the event, calling Kirk and Prager “white nationalist provocateurs.” The faculty members who signed the letter were then added to Turning Point’s watchlist.
The following month, the Lewis Center’s main donor, Thomas W. Lewis, told the Barrett Center that he would stop funding it because of the hostility he believed it faced over the event, according to a university report on the matter. Lewis’s foundation financed a large portion of the center’s budget, including $160,000 of its director’s roughly $300,000 salary. The center was dissolved and its director, Ann Atkinson, lost her job, writing later in The Wall Street Journal that she was fired for organizing the event featuring Kirk and Prager. ASU says she’s out because of the loss of funding.
Arizona legislators then formed a committee to investigate the status of free speech at the state’s public universities. The committee gave the university two months to investigate the Lewis Center event and Atkinson’s claims. ASU released a report saying that Barrett faculty members did not violate any university policies, and that the university did not infringe on free speech in the lead-up to or during the event at the Lewis Center.
Then, in September, Kirk and Prager returned to ASU for another event. A small group of students who protested outside were approached by antagonists, according to videos that were shared with The Chronicle, and at least one protester was asked questions about their genitals.
A few weeks later, Boyles was pushed to the ground.
“It does make me afraid,” said Hypatia Meraviglia, a Ph.D. candidate in geology, who is trans. Meraviglia was one of the protesters at the September event. What happened to Boyles, Meraviglia said, “could happen to me or any of my friends.”
Meraviglia and other students want to see Turning Point kicked off campus, and an LGBTQ+ center created to offer resources to students, especially trans students.
“The lack of support leads up to violence,” said Mimi Araya, a graduate student. “We should have a place to land when things like this happen.”
When asked about the community center, Crow said ASU has “services that are unbelievable for every group imaginable. There are other things we can do so communities can feel safer. We’re looking at all of those things.”
Araya said the LGBTQ+ center could house a queer library, a trans study space, transition-related resources, and queer staff members, among other supports. She said she hopes Crow will follow through on his promise to keep students safe.
