‘I will never retreat.’ UNC professor defends record after reinstatement
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- UNC reinstated Dwayne Dixon after an investigation found no basis for allegations.
- UNC suspended Dixon on Sept. 29 over alleged incitement; ACLU threatened legal action.
- Dixon vows to never retreat, resume teaching and use free speech to oppose fascism.
At 12:20 p.m. Wednesday, Dwayne Dixon was set to enter New West Building to teach his first class since UNC reinstated him — “Embodying Japan: Cultures of Sport, Beauty and Medicine.”
The first thing Dixon said he would tell his students? It’s easy to blame people in times of crisis. But this time calls for extending grace and refraining from judgment.
“Of course, I have a critique of [UNC] Chancellor [Lee] Roberts’ decisions,” Dixon said. “But what I would really urge all of us — Chancellor Roberts and the rest of us — to do is to reflect on the choices we made. How can we improve?”
UNC suspended Dixon, a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, on Sept. 29, while it investigated whether he had incited political violence, The News & Observer reported. The suspension drew condemnation from UNC faculty, the American Association of University Professors of North Carolina and the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina — the latter threatening to sue the university if it didn’t reinstate Dixon by Oct. 3.
UNC did that on Friday, saying it found “no basis” to the allegations that Dixon had advocated political violence. On Wednesday, Dixon and others spoke at a news conference outside South Building, the university’s main administration building that also houses the chancellor’s office.
“I will never retreat nor recant my position, and I will use my free-speech rights to continue to name and refuse fascism and white supremacy,” Dixon said.
Dixon defends actions in video Roberts saw
Dixon is no stranger to controversy about his use of firearms. In 2017, he was charged in Durham with going armed to the terror of people after bringing a semi-automatic rifle downtown, The Herald-Sun reported. At the time, he said he had heard a KKK rally would take place. The rally never materialized.
A judge dismissed the charge, and Dixon settled for $3,000 with Durham County after he alleged the sheriff had violated his rights to bear arms, free association and free expression, The News & Observer reported.
But Roberts’ decision to suspend Dixon was motivated by something the chancellor said he had not seen before.
At a faculty council meeting on Oct. 3, Roberts said he had seen a video of Dixon on Sept. 28 shooting a semi-automatic firearm and calling for some kind of confrontation, The Daily Tar Heel reported. Roberts did not specify what video or how he found it but said it motivated the decision to suspend Dixon and conduct a threat assessment.
When asked about the video Wednesday, Dixon — who said his father was a career Army officer and that his grandfather flew bomber planes in World War II — said he was exercising his Second Amendment rights and doing “something that millions of Americans do every day: plinking targets.”
Dixon referred to a 2018 Australian Broadcasting Corp. documentary about Redneck Revolt where he conducted firearms training in Western North Carolina, though he did not specify if the video Roberts saw is from that documentary. Dixon said he was doing “de-escalation work” and trying to build friendships with militia groups who, presumably, were on the opposite side of the political spectrum from him.
“Guns happen to be something we have in common,” Dixon said. “So that was a point of community building.”
Students, professors vouch for Dixon
UNC communication professor and UNC AAUP chapter president Michael Palm accused the conservative activist organization Turning Point USA (TPUSA) — whose spokesperson Andrew Kolvet called for Dixon’s firing over ties to Redneck Revolt — of having harassed Dixon for years.
Palm said in 2018, TPUSA members came to campus and “physically harassed” Dixon to provoke a confrontation.
“Seven years later, Turning Point USA is still targeting Professor Dixon, and their finger pointing is apparently all it took for UNC administrators to have him placed on administrative leave,” Palm said.
One of Dixon’s former students attended the news conference. The sophomore, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of being targeted by UNC administrators, told The N&O she grew up learning U.S. history from the perspective that “America is the greatest” and had won many wars.
But taking Dixon’s Introduction to Asia class challenged her to think about those who suffer in war rather than how war affects the United States.
The student said she’s from a small, conservative town in eastern North Carolina and struggled to find her people. But talking with Dixon challenged her to think about where she got her way of thinking. When she heard Dixon was suspended, she was confused.
“There’s a lot of different people here, a lot of different ways of thinking, a lot of different ethnicities and sexual orientations,” the student said. “And to see something so targeted and single-minded happen to a professor like Dixon, it really disappointed me about this university.”
Palm was on a committee to review Dixon for promotion and observed one of his classes, he said. He wrote in a letter of support for Dixon’s promotion that “the aspect of Dixon’s teaching that most impresses me is his devotion to his students.”
“It is also clear from his students’ evaluations of his teaching, which I reviewed, and from their public statements and their presence here today, that Professor Dixon’s students respect him, appreciate him, and they know how much he cares about them,” Palm said.
This story was originally published October 8, 2025 at 5:33 PM.
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