A conservative Stanford professor plotted to dig up dirt on a liberal student

[demmiblue]

Niall Ferguson’s leaked emails show what’s really going on in the campus free speech fight.

Source: Vox

The latest campus free speech controversy has a twist: It involves a conservative professor conspiring with students, in emails that sound like they were written by comic book villains, to dig up dirt on a progressive undergraduate.

The controversy took place at Stanford University and involves Niall Ferguson, a controversial historian known for his defenses of British colonialism. Ferguson was one of the faculty leaders of Cardinal Conversations, a Stanford program run by the conservative Hoover Institution that aims to bring speakers to the university who would “air contested issues on our campus.” The program’s speaker slate leaned right; recent events featured race-and-IQ theorist Charles Murray, tech mogul Peter Thiel, and Christina Hoff Sommers, a prominent critic of modern feminism.

Ferguson seemed to view Michael Ocon, a left-wing student activist slated to graduate in 2020, as a threat to the program. In an email to two members of the Stanford Republicans, John Rice-Cameron and Max Minshull, he wrote that “some opposition research on Mr. O [Ferguson’s name for Ocon] might also be worthwhile.” Minshull, who works as Ferguson’s research associate, said he’d “get on” the dirt-digging.

Some of the emails had an overtly sinister tone. Rice-Cameron, who is, oddly enough, the son of Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice, wrote in one email that “slowly, we will continue to crush the Left’s will to resist, as they will crack under pressure.”

Read more: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/1/17417042/niall-ferguson-stanford-emails?utm_campaign=vox.social&utm_medium=social&utm_source=sprout&utm_content=1527886013

[bettyellen]

1. Wow, according to this article Stanford is the last college where the RWers should be complaining

“It’s not like Stanford is a university where there’s no room for right-leaning students. Hoover is a center-right think tank based at the university with a budget of more than $50 million and an endowment of more than $450 million. There is no left-wing equivalent — a large ideological think tank that closely connected to a university — at any school in the United States.”

[dlk]

2. Sadly, Children Can Turn Out to Be Very Different Than Their Parents, Despite How They Were Raised

It will be interesting to see how the administration at Stanford addresses this plot to sabotage a grad student.

[Merlot]

3. slowly, we will continue to crush the Left's will to resist...'

“slowly, we will continue to crush the Left’s will to resist, as they will crack under pressure.”

So much for the next generation being the ones to save democracy. Some things never change.

[AJT]

4. And that's Susan Rice's son.

[appalachiablue]

6. Well funded and expanding over decades. 'crush' 'crack' Lol.

From the first writings & appearances I followed, I found Ferguson clearly biased, far right and reeking of political agenda.
And I've studied quite a number of historians.

[appalachiablue]

5. Arrogant, overrated Niall full of it. This is despicable & typical RW. His programs stink too.

Glad he's out at Stanford, where next..

[Nitram]

7. Like many conservatives, they live in a highly simplified comic book world.

Sad that this guy is seen as a historian. No one who took an honest look at history could defend British colonialism. Sure they built a government, roads, and schools and such. That provided stability, infrastructure and trained workers to boost the exploitation of colonial raw materials.