The home of a Purdue University professor who serves as an adviser to the university’s College Republicans organization was recently vandalized, according to a police report.

On Nov. 18 the home of David Bridges, a professor in the biology department at Purdue and club adviser to the Purdue University College Republicans, was extensively vandalized. The vandals managed to coat a majority of his driveway with red paint, while also painting “Nazi lives here” on his garage door.

Initially, Bridges was stunned by the attack and assumed it was related to a recent political race his wife, Susan Burch, had been involved in. Burch, a Republican, was been defeated in her race for Tippecanoe City Council by Democratic opponent Lisa Gillum. However, both GIllum and Burch agreed that the level of political disagreement involved in their race was nowhere near the amount of vandalism leveled on the Bridges family home.

Instead, Bridges believes the attack to be related to flyers placed on the Purdue campus prior to the 2018 midterm elections, in which a white hand giving the “OK” symbol was displayed alongside a brown-skinned hand forming a fist, with the slogan “Jobs Not Mobs.” While the flyer itself did not contain any explicit racial wording, a number of students perceived the message of the flyers to be racial in nature, given the difference in skin tone between the two hands and the “OK” hand symbol.

While initially unaware of the posters' message when they were posted, Bridges said had he been consulted about the project, he would not have given his approval for the posters.

“My opinion is, this sort of thing is totally inappropriate,” Bridges replied, when asked about the overall message of the flyers. “You don’t go putting things up that say, ‘White power,’ and then go sticking a Republican logo next to it. I find it pretty offensive, and I certainly would not have approved it if it had ever come to me. … I honestly can’t see that it’s defensible. I really can’t.”

While the racial undertones related to the flyers is a subject of debate, the Purdue debacle also represents the ruthlessness of the tactics employed by Antifa, as they did not even bother to collect all of the facts surrounding the situation before choosing to attack an innocent bystander who was not even aware that the flyers had been posted.

John Patrick (@john_pat_rick) is a graduate of Canisius College and Georgia Southern University. He interned for Red Alert Politics during the summer of 2012 and has continued to contribute regularly.