When Koch brothers proxies in the Wisc. legislature go after a professor’s emails

Professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment offers an in-depth look at the American right-wing’s latest attempt to stifle academic freedom in leading universities. Cole, a history professor at the Univ. of Mich. writes:

The latest McCarthyite tactics of the American Right Wing is to attempt to intimidate professors at public universities by launching Freedom of Information Requests for their emails, as part of a witch hunt for dreaded Liberal Opinions.

First, the proxies for the Koch brothers in the Wisconsin legislature went after the emails of prominent University of Wisconsin professor William Cronon (the incoming head of the American Historical Association). The reasoning here is that state laws typically prohibit the use of state resources for partisan political activity, and those states with open meeting laws want to make sure that state resources are not used for political plotting in smoke-filled rooms.

Then, as Rachel Maddow explains below, a Koch-brothers-funded think tank in Michigan requested the emails of professors in this state, including the University of Michigan, including those that mention Maddow’s name. 

  Read Cole’s complete post here.