Workers’ Voice expresses our full solidarity with Tom Alter, a member of Socialist Horizon and professor at Texas State University, who was fired from his teaching job for expressing his political opinions in an online presentation at a Sept. 8 socialist conference. When the university president ordered Dr. Alter’s dismissal based on false charges that the professor was “inciting violence,” he was taking a page from the discredited McCarthyite witch hunt tactics of several generations ago.
We are outraged at this blatant attack on free speech and urge our readers to support and participate in the organized efforts to protest Dr. Alter’s dismissal and demand that his position on the TSU faculty be fully restored.
We reprint below a statement by Socialist Horizon, with a link to a petition to the TSU authorities urging that they retreat from their attack on free speech and reinstate Dr. Alter immediately: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back Donate to help Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
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Beloved History professor and Socialist Horizon member Tom Alter was summarily fired on September 10th by Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse for expressing his ideas in a virtual conference unrelated to the university. The grounds for his dismissal were based solely on false accusations published online by self-declared fascist and “anti-communist cult leader” Karlyn Borysenko. We call on Dr. Kelly Damphousse and the TSU administration to retreat from this flagrant attack on the basic right to free speech and wrongful termination of Dr. Tom Alter. We call for his immediate reinstatement.
Alter’s summary termination is a serious attack on free speech that could set dangerous precedents, contribute to Trump and the far right’s intention of imposing an authoritarian regime, and strengthen the influence of fascists and the most violent and reactionary groups. We call on all (organizations, etc.) to join us in building the broadest campaign to win this decisive battle.
Alter was speaking at an on-line socialism conference last week when he was secretly video recorded by Borysenko, who has publicly called for embracing fascism (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gCBU2OOX9Y), stated that Jewish people chose to die in the Holocaust (https://www.newsweek.com/prageru-karlyn-borysenko-holocaust-hitler-heaven-1656788), and refers to herself as an “anti-communist cult leader (https://x.com/DrKarlynB).” She secretly recorded a talk that Dr. Alter gave at the Revolutionary Socialism Conference and began calling for his firing (https://x.com/DrKarlynB/status/1965074589928796538) on social media on Monday, September 8th. Using tactics borrowed directly from the McCarthy era, Borysenko submitted a doctored video to University President Kelly Damphousse, who immediately fired Alter.
The statement issued by Damphousse unambiguously affirms that he fired Alter for what he said at that conference, stating no other reason, claiming Alter of “inciting violence.” This accusation and immediate condemnation without due process is solely based on Borysenko’s doctored recordings and comments.
The fact that a fascist marginal streamer with a dangerous and extremist ideology can pressure the president of a prestigious public university to illegally fire a tenured professor for his opinions is very serious. More concerning, if we do not stop this, it will set a precedent that will embolden the most dangerous bigots, right-wing extremists and fascists. If they can influence the president of Texas State University so easily, who else will they go after?
This attack not only targets Alter. Behind Damphousse’s statement that blatantly highlights Alter’s opinions as the cause for his termination, there is a deliberate attack on free speech that aims to set another dangerous precedent. It is part of the attempt by Trump and the far right to impose an authoritarian regime, one in which dissidence is punished. If we do not stop this, they will be a significant step closer.
Damphousse claims that Alter’s words incited “violence.” But his speech, a transcript of which can be viewed here, (https://universitystar.com/32736/news/texas-state-terminates-history-professor-over-comments-made-at-conference/), called for no violence. It is in fact the fascist Borysenko who incites violence permanently against oppressed people and in this case against Alter. It is Alter’s employer Texas State University that inflicted violence: stripping Alter of his job, refusing him any due process, casting him and his family into the uncertainty of unemployment and slamming the door on his free speech and academic freedom. Alter’s First Amendment right to speak, guaranteed by the Constitution, has been violated, as has his academic freedom, as developed by his faculty union, the American Association of University Professors.
And it is Trump who inflicts violence against millions. It is this capitalist system that Alter spoke against that inflicts mass violence condemning billions to hunger, poverty and war while a handful accumulates ever growing obscene amounts of wealth that steals from the rest of us.
What did Alter talk about that triggered Borysenko, and Damphousse considers so unacceptable? He spoke against this cruel and unjust system and argued in favor of replacing it with socialism. And he advocated organizing politically to achieve this. With nearly 40% of Americans favoring socialism over capitalism, this is far from subversive. It is a just cause that more and more people are joining, one worth fighting for, and one bigots and capitalists are afraid of.
Alter was attacked by Borysenko because he told the truth many people in the United States believe today: that capitalism is ruining their lives, and that socialism is a better system. If Tom Alter can be fired for expressing his personal beliefs and principles, then people everywhere are in danger. If he can be fired for expressing a point of view while *not at work, but in his private life,* then none are safe. His case must draw support from people of all sectors of society: workers, teachers, nurses, students—anyone who upholds the value of free speech. As the great American abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said, “The law on the side of freedom is of great advantage only when there is power to make that law respected.”
These attacks will not intimidate Socialist Horizon. We will defend our comrade and we will continue fighting for the cause he is being attacked for, and we will continue building the organization to win it.
Alter is not only a beloved faculty member at Texas State but also an advisor to several student organizations. He is the author of a celebrated history of socialism in the American South, Toward a Cooperative Commonwealth: The Transplanted Roots of Farmer-Labor Radicalism in Texas (University of Illinois Press). He is also the father of two children.
Socialist Horizon demands that Texas State University immediately restore Tom Alter’s position as Associate Professor of History.
Socialist Horizon also calls on all organizations and individuals that defend the basic democratic right to free speech and reject fascism and authoritarianism, and all socialists in particular, to join this fight.
This is an attack on all of us. We need to confront it with the broadest unitary campaign for Alter’s immediate reinstatement, in defense of free speech and against fascism.
— Socialist Horizon
September 12, 2025
What you can do:
Sign this petition demanding Alter be given his job back: https://www.change.org/p/texas-state-university-give-tom-alter-his-job-back
Donate to help Alter and his family with living and legal expenses: https://gofund.me/27c72f26d
Write to and call the President and Provost at Texas State University demanding that Alter be given his job back:
- President Damphousse president@txstate.edu
- President’s Office Phone: 512-245-2121
- Provost Pranesh Aswath: xrk25@txstate.edu
- Provost Office Phone: 512-245-2205
