Recently, we posted a story about how the Stanford College Republicans are under attack. The Stanford Daily published an editorial to the effect that the College Republicans did not deserve to be on campus. When the CR sent a letter in reply to the paper, they refused to publish it claiming that it did not meet their editorial standards.
Similarly, the conservative, Stanford-based Hoover Institution is under attack. Just recently a group of professors, led by our old friend, Professor of Comparative Literature, David Palumbo-Liu, a noted Israel-basher, unsuccessfully lobbied the Faculty Senate to re-examine the relationship between Stanford and the Hoover Institution, arguing that the conservative think tank is spreading misinformation about various topics including Covid 19 and the recent presidential election. Palumbo-Liu is one of the virtual army of university professors who march arm in arm with the Palestinians. They travel from campus to campus giving their presentations against the state of Israel. I was present at UC Irvine in 2016 when Palumbo-Liu spoke on freedom of speech and made a misstatement regarding the US State Department's definition of anti-Semitism as pertaining to criticism of Israel. When called to account on that after the event by a UCI teaching colleague of mine, the Star of Stanford turned tail and scurried-yes-scurried out of the room. I was right there, and I saw it.
As for the Stanford Daily, it is exactly what you would expect of a major campus newspaper. It is totally dominated by leftist writers and leftist positions on everything. Not surprisingly, the Stanford Daily is also an instrument in the campaign to get the Hoover Institution removed from Stanford, a campaign led by Palumbo-Liu. In the past couple of years, there have been many articles about the Hoover Institution in the Stanford Daily. They are overwhelmingly negative. True, they did publish a response from noted Hoover fellow Victor Davis Hanson last December when he was attacked for his conservative views. But it would hard to seriously argue that the coverage has been fair and balanced.
As for Palumbo-Liu, he's a regular at the Stanford Daily, a real rock star in their eyes. Just since October, he has penned at least three articles about the Hoover Institution which you can read here, here, and here.
From the first link, Palumbo-Liu says this:
"Some, like my colleague Russell Berman, argue that it is important to have a diversity of opinions, and that it would be important to have the Hoover more engaged in the Stanford classroom in terms of “diversifying” the classroom. I do not accept that argument. Why? Besides the reason I just mentioned, the Hoover has proven itself willing to skew and bend and ignore facts in order to promote its brand of knowledge, and in ways that flagrantly go against science and the public good."
What that means is that Palumbo-Lui, who is an activist who pushes his opinions on many topics including the Israel-Palestinian conflict, doesn't want opposing opinions on the Stanford campus.
And also from the first link:
"Where we enter into conflict is that partisan think-tanks are not universities, nor vice versa. The premise of universities is that knowledge should be pursued no matter where that pursuit leads — there should be no restriction on research, no matter how inconvenient the truth is to one’s ideological commitments.
The fact that Hoover is looking for knowledge that confirms its beliefs means that it cannot be impartial. Universities must be impartial by definition. Neither can universities be partisan — that would be a terrible breach of academic freedom. There is no such thing as “guided research.” The “thinking” at the Hoover is channeled toward confirming an already existing belief."
How ironic that an activist like Palumbo-Liu is so concerned with a university being impartial and non-partisan. Yet, at the same time, he is leading the charge to get the Hoover Institution thrown off the Stanford campus. This is standard leftist methodology in action. I wonder if there is an effort by the Hoover Institution to remove Palumbo-Liu from Stanford. Of course not.
In the second link, Palumbo-Liu bemoans the defeat of an effort to get the Faculty Senate to re-examine Stanford's relationship with the Hoover Institution as he evokes the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy.
"As a former elected chair of the Faculty Senate, I write this with much more sadness than anger. I want to recall that the Stanford Faculty Senate was founded in 1968—the year that Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy were both assassinated. On its 50th anniversary, the Faculty Senate noted, “Central to the issues that divided the campus in the latter half of the 1960s was the Vietnam War. Opposition to the war by students and faculty focused on several aspects of University life. These included Stanford’s ROTC programs, classified research on campus, and interviews on campus by the CIA.”
And the connection is.....?
In the third link, he states:
"In our presentation to the Faculty Senate on Feb. 11, my colleagues and I demonstrated how Hoover’s commitment to partisan advocacy puts it at odds with many of Stanford’s core values — such as a commitment to diversity of ideas and of peoples, so that the question of “we” is answered affirmatively and inclusively. Hoover Institution does not hold those values — its priorities lie elsewhere. And skeptics like myself wonder for how long Stanford will continue to be independent from Hoover in any meaningful way."
So the Hoover Institute's "commitment to partisan advocacy" (which he himself does on a regular basis) puts it at odds with Stanford's core values such as a commitment to diversity of ideas....
Stop!
If Palumbo-Liu is so concerned about diversity of ideas, why would he object to having a conservative entity on campus, one of the few that Stanford can claim? The fact is that Palumbo-Liu does not want a diversity of ideas at Stanford even though the Hoover Institution boasts some of the best minds in the country in my view, Thomas Sowell, Condoleeza Rice, Victor Davis Hanson etc. Palumbo-Liu doesn't want these people on campus because he knows that.
As far as that "stirring" but irrelevant quote from Toni Morrison, I will spare the reader any discussion on that.
David Palumbo-Liu is an activist. He has the right to speak out and advocate his causes. Others have the right to respond. The issue here is not that Palumbo-Liu is a leftist, a pro-Palestinian, anti-Trump, anti-conservative-whatever he is. The issue is that while he pretends to speak about freedom of speech and diversity, he is actively trying to remove a conservative voice-an an opposing voice- from Stanford.
Conservative thought is obviously a minority position at Stanford. The Hoover Institution is a large part of a small minority. If professors like Palumbo-Liu and his ilk want to debate Hoover's positions, that is fine. It is not ok, however, to try and silence the people at Hoover. I could argue that Palumbo-Liu is an embarrassment to Stanford, but I do not argue that he be silenced or removed from Stanford.
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