https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Foundation_for_Individ...
In this case, the discussion and the tenor of the conversation is almost certainly cherry picked to serve a particular agenda.
On its face, the actions by Stanford in this article seem...not good. But I also suspect that this is making a mountain out of a molehill for political gain.
There is more information in the a "Stanford Daily" article:
https://stanforddaily.com/2023/01/22/protected-identity-harm...
And an opinion article in the "Standford Review":
https://news.google.com/search?q=mein%20kampf%20stanford
It seems like this really is a molehill.
It's odd to watch what is a fairly consistent pattern of Americans being more concerned about the free speech implications of students being students than a likely next presidential nominee banning entire university courses and introducing the felony offence of having unvetted books in school classrooms as part of his culture war against "wokeness" though...
https://www.thefire.org/news/florida-school-district-removes...
https://www.thefire.org/news/fire-warns-office-missouri-secr...
https://www.thefire.org/news/texas-bill-targeting-diversity-...
https://www.thefire.org/news/florida-school-district-removes...
So there's at least some bipartisan criticism. This article seems to match with the stanford article... so do you have any criticism of the contents of this article?
In general, I am in favor of free speech and do not under any circumstances want to police what people read. (especially as reading Mein Kampf at a college would seem to suggest a certain course of study, rather than just recreation). But, I am not in favor of cherry picking incidents to drum up support for "holding people accountable" and making this into some kind of broader trend instead of isolated miscommunication.
I also acknowledge that Stanford has to address this and get it right. But, fire.org appears to be paid to generate this kind of content and that makes me mistrust their motives even if their content is fine.
This is absolutely a molehill mountain propped up to generate outrage, which you can see manifest in these comments.
Now, many of the organizers and funders of FIRE clearly have conservative leanings. But as far as I can tell, so far FIRE's advocacy has been just as principled and non-partisan as the ACLU once was. See, for example, FIRE pushing back against de Santis' retaliation against Disney: https://www.thefire.org/news/blogs/ronald-kl-collins-first-a... Or this recent case opposing a school board's overly broad censorship of sexually explicit material in its libraries: https://www.thefire.org/cases/penncrest-school-district-bans...
But, yes, by appearances many of their high-profile cases involve liberal colleges, but that's because of the strain of pro-censorship ideology which has become prevalent in liberal circles, causing a dramatic swing in the left's attitudes regarding free speech. Today, advocacy for expansive free speech rights has largely fallen into the hands of a mishmash of cross-partisan people and organizations, more so than in the past, where support on the left had once been more prevalent. And funding, specifically, now seems to be coming more from the right. But if once upon a time the ACLU, whose membership and funding predominately came from the left--even decades ago, not to mention today--could do it, then there's no reason why FIRE can't.
OTOH, the ACLU did a 180 on free speech because over time too much of its membership and, especially, funding came from the left.[1] And the left's attitudes wrt free speech has changed. So hopefully FIRE will make it a priority to expand its funding and membership bases, so it's less susceptible to political shifts.
[1] This isn't a rant against the ACLU. They still do alot of good work. The ACLU has been having these debates in the public for years, and plenty of long-time ACLU supporters have become disenchanted with changes at the ACLU, including previous ACLU leaders, particularly wrt free speech. The reasons for changes at the ACLU are well known and not seriously disputed. The only disputes concern the philosophical justifications for the changes in policy.
Freedom of speech as a concept has become (in a very bizarre plot twist to anybody who's old enough to remember even the 1980's) a conservative standpoint, so it's safe to assume anybody who's defending it in the 21st century has at least conservative leanings.
It doesn't necessarily follow that they're playing for a team or using "free speech" in a bad faith manner. Academia created the discrepancy, FIRE is just documenting it.