TPUSA approval sparks chaos at Fort Lewis College: Assault reported after professor emeritus erupts

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice

Fort Lewis College in Durango erupted into chaos on November 7th after the Associated Students of Fort Lewis College (ASFLC) reversed an earlier decision and voted to approve a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) chapter on campus. What began as a routine appeal meeting ended with a reported assault, shouting, and a professor emeritus’s profanity-filled outburst—all recorded on video that has since gone viral.

The confrontation was captured on video and quickly spread after being posted to Facebook and amplified on X/Twitter by Libs of TikTok, where it gained national attention.

The appeal meeting itself followed weeks of tension. TPUSA students had first been denied chapter approval, prompting an appeal that drew more than 60 supporters and opponents into the campus building, with many more waiting in the hallway. When ASFLC ultimately reversed the denial and recognized the chapter, supporters in the hallway cheered for the students who had spent weeks organizing their case.

Moments later, the mood shifted.

According to multiple witnesses, a student opposing the TPUSA chapter immediately began screaming at the group as they exited the room, yelling for them to “get the F off campus” and claiming they “weren’t welcome.” Witnesses say the individual then physically assaulted a man in the group, striking his phone and hitting him before campus police intervened.

Lisa Zimmerman, who recorded the now-viral video, said, “We just literally had one of our people get physically assaulted, which we have not been able to get any kind of anything from campus police on. They keep giving us a runaround on that.”

She said the person who was struck attempted to get help: “We had the individual who was attacked. We had him call and he was told today that the chief of the campus police would not be in until Wednesday.”

As campus police separated the individuals involved in the assault, a second confrontation erupted—this time involving Professor Emeritus David Kozak. Zimmerman described him as suddenly storming toward the group while campus police looked on.

“We had a professor, David Kozak, who just comes and starts calling us all kinds of names,” she said.

In the video, the professor emeritus can be seen repeatedly shouting “Nazi” and “fascist,” flipping off the camera, and approaching witnesses at close range—an outburst that lasted nearly two minutes, according to The Post Millennial.

The same outlet documented Kozak’s history of posting politically charged content on social media. In one public remark, he wrote that “Trump Republicans are a clear and present danger” and warned that electing them could lead to “autocracy or theocracy if not outright fascism.” 

These posts resurfaced after the video spread online and were later referenced by the college’s public information office, which clarified his status as a professor emeritus.

Zimmerman said Kozak also made physical contact:

“There’s one point in time – he’s putting his hand on my camera and doing all kinds of stuff and I’m asking the officer can you get this guy off me? And the officer’s like doing nothing.”

Another witness, Nikki, who asked to use only her first name, stood nearby during the confrontation and intervened to protect others.

She said, “It was just all of a sudden this guy started yelling… calling us names… calling us Nazis and fascists and what not, and would not get out of our faces and would not leave us alone.”

Seeing the situation escalate, she stepped forward to block the professor emeritus and shield the smaller women behind her.

“I absolutely just kind of put myself between him and them. I tried to avoid any kind of altercation,” she said.

Both witnesses said the students in the hallway were stunned by his behavior. Nikki recalled, “I think they were just kind of in disbelief that grown adults… a professor in that college would act in such a way.”

At least one student in the video can be heard telling him, “I’m not white and I want Turning Point to have a place here.”

Campus police, witnesses say, did little to intervene. Zimmerman stated, “They didn’t ask for his name. They didn’t ask for contact info for him. They didn’t ask for anything.”

The man who was assaulted left the building immediately, telling witnesses that no one appeared willing to address what happened.

Why tensions had already been building

Fort Lewis College saw weeks of tension leading up to the meltdown. The TPUSA students had faced opposition – including petitions, criticism from peers and heated debate at the first ASFLC meeting that denied their chapter application. Supporters argued that the students were being singled out because of their conservative views.

Nikki said she attended for that reason: “I personally believe that… every student should have their space on campus… freedom of speech is a big thing… it’s a constitutional right.”

She emphasized that political ideology wasn’t the issue—student rights were: “This issue wasn’t a red issue versus blue or a republican versus democrat [issue]. This was a freedom of speech issue.”

Unanswered questions linger

Rocky Mountain Voice contacted Fort Lewis College seeking clarification on why campus police reportedly made no immediate report, what action is being taken regarding the assault and how the college plans to ensure that students can organize without intimidation. A Colorado Open Records Act request has also been submitted for incident reports and internal communications related to the confrontation. At the time of publication, RMV has not received a response. 

Zimmerman said she released the full video publicly because, “The video just needs to be out there. People need to see what’s happening.”

Both she and Nikki said the biggest concern is that students—particularly conservative students—may now feel intimidated by faculty or staff.

“I really would hope that this would serve as a lesson,” Nikki said, “of how we need to come back together as communities… to defend each other’s rights, such as freedom of speech, and not accept this type of behavior.”