Historian Niall Ferguson urged conservative students to "unite against the SJWs" on a Stanford speakers' committee, encouraged "opposition research" on one student member.
stanforddaily.com/2018/05/31/ema…
stanforddaily.com/2018/05/31/ema…
Why did Niall Ferguson attempt to suppress left-wing students' voices on the speakers' committee? Why, because it "was in danger of being taken over by elements that were fundamentally hostile to free speech," of course.
Oh, and look at this. The student Ferguson and his buddies were trying to dig up dirt on? Was the subject of an apparent dirty tricks operation from a conservative Stanford newspaper last month. stanforddaily.com/2018/04/12/ass…
Just to lay this all out: Ferguson and his student allies, some of whom had ties to TPUSA, conspired to hobble student activism Michael Ocon in February.
Two months later, when Ocon was running for student government, the Stanford Review ran a piece suggesting that Ocon had been secretly funded by ... TPUSA.
And John Rice-Cameron is (1) one of the students Ferguson was conspiring with in the just-released emails, (2) a Stanford TPUSA organizer, and (3) a staffer for the Stanford Review.
This kind of student govt dirty-tricks stuff isn't unusual—it happens all over the place, and from all sides. It's not the interesting part of this story.
For a prominent, powerful professor to be involved in it, though—directly and possibly through the work of one of his research assistants as well—that's what's startling.
I'd be very interested in knowing whether Niall Ferguson research assistant Max Minshull followed through on his promise to conduct the "opposition research" on his fellow student that Ferguson, his employer, requested.
Oh, and here's Minshull, Ferguson's "free speech" ally, objecting to student funding supporting a campus speaker whose views he finds repugnant. stanfordreview.org/sjp-welcomes-m…
One more weird thing: Ferguson seems to have written an "I'm being oppressed by internet meanies" column about this story before the story even broke. niallferguson.com/journalism/mis…
Nice writeup on the incident that notes that the speaker series Ferguson was trying to protect from "SJW" influence recently brought Charles Murray and Christina Hoff Sommers to campus. vox.com/policy-and-pol…
It's amazing how many proponents of "viewpoint diversity" define "diversity" as "constantly recycling the same four hippie-punching semi-scholars."
"We need to really shake things up and invigorate cross-ideological dialogue on our campus! Let's see if we can get Charles Murray!"
I mean. 
