The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has moved swiftly against one of its own faculty members after revelations tying him to a far-left militia-style group with a history of extremism and violence.
Dr. Dwayne Dixon, a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, was placed on administrative leave effective immediately, according to a statement from UNC. The university cited “alleged advocacy of politically motivated violence” as the reason for the suspension, adding that Dixon’s conduct could result in discipline “up to and including termination.”
Dixon is not just a tenured academic. He is also a self-professed member of Redneck Revolt, a far-left gun club the Counter Extremism Project describes as openly anti-capitalist, anti-police, and anti-nation-state. The group has direct ties to the John Brown Gun Club, an organization notorious for recruiting young radicals, glorifying political violence, and celebrating attacks on conservatives.
This is not Dixon’s first brush with controversy. In 2017, he was charged after showing up to a Durham rally armed with a semi-automatic rifle — blocking roads and alarming bystanders. Those charges were dropped, but his presence with Redneck Revolt at the Charlottesville rally that same year put him back under the microscope. During a Harvard panel afterward, Dixon admitted to waving off James Fields with his rifle shortly before Fields killed Heather Heyer by driving into a crowd.
Dixon was also charged with assault in 2018 amid the violent toppling of the “Silent Sam” Confederate statue on UNC’s campus. That charge, too, was dismissed, but it reinforced his role as a recurring figure in political unrest.
The John Brown Gun Club, with which Dixon’s chapter is affiliated, has a darker record still. Its members have been tied to attempted bombings, shootings, and violent clashes. One member, Willem van Spronsen, attempted to blow up an ICE facility in 2019 before being shot dead by authorities.
He was later lionized by Antifa groups as a martyr. More recently, the group plastered recruiting flyers at Georgetown University celebrating the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, complete with slogans referencing the alleged killer’s bullet casings.
For UNC, the optics are grim. A professor entrusted with shaping young minds was simultaneously part of a movement whose affiliates openly call for and engage in violence. The university’s statement carefully balanced its commitment to free speech with a blunt rejection of “inciting or extending sympathy toward violence of any kind.”
But parents, taxpayers, and alumni will likely be asking sharper questions: how did someone with Dixon’s track record keep a classroom for this long? And at what point does “academic freedom” cross into the territory of legitimizing extremist militancy?
