[News] I'm a Stanford professor accused of being part of a 'terrorist group'. McCarthyism is back .

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/08/stanford-professor-mccarthyism-antifa?CMP=share_btn_fb 



  I'm a Stanford professor accused of being part of a 'terrorist group'.
  McCarthyism is back .

David Palumbo-Liu - February 8, 2018
------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am used to receiving abusive messages and being publicly maligned. 
Now, however, attacks on me have reached troubling new heights

<#img-1>

Today anyone can be accused of anything, without basis in fact or 
evidence, and that accusation can be instantly trumpeted over the 
airwaves unchecked by any journalistic standard. That is the painful 
lesson I have had to learn this year.

As a scholar-activist working on issues such as sexual assault, 
Palestine, and anti-fascism, I am used to receiving abusive messages and 
being publicly maligned. Now, however, attacks on me have reached 
troubling new heights.

Last month, the Stanford Review, a rightwing publication co-founded by 
Peter Thiel and based on my university campus, wrote 
<https://stanfordreview.org/antifa-thugs-find-a-champion-and-leader-in-stanford-professor-3/> 
that I have helped set up an “organization [that is] undeniably a 
chapter of a terrorist group” and demanded my resignation. Their article 
was picked up by groups like JihadWatch, Campus Fix, Campus Reform, Fox 
& Friends, and other rightwing media outlets.

The organization I belong to is called the Campus Antifascist Network 
<http://campusantifascistnetwork.com/>. We advocate for organized 
resistance to fascist violence on campus, and for educating our 
communities and others as to the nature of fascism today. We claim 
solidarity with a proud tradition of anti-fascism dating back to the 
early 20th century.

The group was founded shortly after the election of Donald Trump, and 
responded to the steady rise of a well-funded rightwing campaign on 
college campuses. We do not – and never would – advocate – for 
initiating violence.

The attack on me is part of a broader phenomenon noted by the American 
Association of University Professors, which claims 
<https://onefacultyoneresistance.org/faculty-attack-fighting-targeted-harassment/> 
that college campuses are the new battleground for conservative groups 
<https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2018/02/02/with-patience-and-lot-money-kochs-sow-conservatism-campuses/P6lrj1eIMNr4jPUZm8mbLO/story.html?event=event25>, 
far-right organizations and white supremacists 
<https://www.chronicle.com/article/White-Supremacists-Are/242403>. These 
groups are all trying to intimidate faculty and students, to recruit 
members, and to attract publicity. Not just careers and reputations are 
on the line – often personal safety is as well.

Today, we are seeing the resurgence of a wretched phenomenon we thought 
we had put behind us – McCarthyism, which involves “the use of tactics 
involving personal attacks on individuals by means of widely publicized 
indiscriminate allegations especially on the basis of unsubstantiated 
charges”.

Professors are more than hesitant about fighting back against 
accusations that emanate from organizations supported by the likes of 
Peter Thiel 
<https://stanfordpolitics.org/2017/11/27/peter-thiel-cover-story/> or 
Charlie Kirk 
<http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/43419-young-fascists-on-campus-turning-point-usa-and-its-far-right-connections>, 
who founded Turning Point USA.

In recent years, there have been well-publicized cases of academics who 
have had their syllabuses or social media cherry-picked for allegedly 
inflammatory statements, and then found themselves on the receiving end 
of orchestrated harassment campaigns.

CNN ran a story on the increasing numbers of professors like myself who 
have faced death threats for their political statements and activism. 
<http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/21/us/university-professors-free-speech-online-hate-threats/index.html> 
But it’s not just political progressives and radicals who are being hit. 
Scientists are under attack, too. Michael Mann, a professor of 
atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at 
Penn State University, has received death threats for his work on 
climate change 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-what-the-coming-attack-on-climate-science-could-look-like/2016/12/16/e015cc24-bd8c-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html?utm_term=.0b8a59401937>.

Despite this new and alarming phenomenon on campus, university 
administrators seem loth to aggressively protect their faculty. My own 
university has left it to me to press charges, and has chosen not to 
make any public comment on the Stanford Review’s defamation of my 
character, despite an open letter 
<https://www.gopetition.com/petitions/stand-against-intimidation-of-faculty.html> 
supporting me signed by nearly 700 members of the Stanford community.

Besides those who signed letters of support, six constitutional law 
scholars from the Stanford School of Law wrote a letter to the editor 
<https://www.stanforddaily.com/2018/02/02/letter-to-the-editor-in-response-to-david-palumbo-liu-and-the-stanford-review/>of 
the Stanford Daily declaring that there was no evidence that I had 
advocated violence, nor that I am a member of a terrorist group. These 
then were my sources of support, not the university. Yet this has not 
stopped the attacks on me.

I don’t have the resources to bring a libel suit – I cannot out-lawyer a 
newspaper that has an ally in its founder and major contributor to the 
university, Peter Thiel.

The troubling question is: who does?


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