A computer science professor at Elon University has become widely quoted by the mainstream media as an “expert” on “far-right extremism.” But it turns out she’s quite the extremist herself. She collects personal data indiscriminately and sends it to Antifa groups and militias known for their eagerness to engage in political violence.
Her name is Megan Squire. Her Elon University bio says that her main research area is “applying data science techniques to understand niche and extremist online communities, particularly radical right-wing groups on social media.” Outside academia she serves as a senior fellow for data analytics at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and leads the technical research team for the UK-based Center for Analysis of the Radical Right (CARR).
Squire is beloved by the mainstream media for her “expertise.” Almost five-and-a-half pages of her CV consist of bullet point listings of all the times she’s been quoted by the mainstream media. A significant amount of them occurred either this year or last year. As the media and elite class ramp up their smears and attacks on dissident right-wing patriots, Squire appears to be getting quoted more and more often.
Increasing appearances in the media notwithstanding, Squire has been a public figure for several years. In January 2018 Wired favorably profiled her as “Antifa’s secret weapon against far-right extremists.”
“Megan Squire is an intelligence operative of sorts, passing along information to those who might put it to real-world use, like Antifa—who can weaponize it,” Wired says.
The tech magazine then boasted of her massive database—dehumanizingly called “Whack-a-Mole”—of some 400,000 people she considers “white nationalists” or “far-right extremists” and her penchant for leaking names to Antifa activists, knowing full well they would post photos and information about the targets online to harass them and get them fired from their jobs.
Squire may say she’s “peaceful” and “doesn’t consider herself to be antifa,” but she makes no bones about being “sympathetic” to Antifa and “unwilling” to disavow Antifa violence, which she describes as a “last resort of a ‘diversity of tactics.'”
Former president Donald Trump has referred to Antifa as a “domestic terrorist organization” on several occasions and called for its official designation as such. And Squire sends data to these groups—groups in which violence and intimidation are central to their entire modus operandi.
Doesn’t the very definition of “terrorism” go something like this: “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims”?
Wired even comes right out and says that “in the digital age, doxing is a particularly blunt tool, one meant to terrorize and threaten people in their most private spaces.” The candor here is incredible. Infer from it what you will.
Thus, Squire is not really an academic who does activism on the side, but a full-fledged activist who uses her academic career to assist violent left-wing groups. Squire has been involved in left-wing activism since age 15. Research and data collection may be her primary vehicles now, but she’s been spotted before at in-person gatherings and protests as well:
In August 2017 the Raleigh-Durham chapter of Industrial Workers of the World described Squire as a “Fellow Worker.” She participated as a counter-protester at the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and told of her experience to the Times-News.
Squire is also known to leak data to the far-left militia group Redneck Revolt, also known as the John Brown Gun Club. In 2017 Far Left Watch exposed the resources the group had once provided on their website—resources such as a 36-page “Mini-Manual of the Urban Guerrilla” that included sections on “sabotage,” “kidnapping,” “executions,” “armed propaganda,” and “terrorism.” Far Left Watch’s reporting led Redneck Revolt to remove the “Mini-Manual” from their site altogether:
For what it’s worth, the RedneckRevolt.org domain no longer exists and the group has not posted to Twitter since February 2019. The group last made headlines in July 2019 when Willem van Spronsen of the Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club—a now-independent organization that had been affiliated with Redneck Revolt until January 2019—firebombed an ICE facility in Tacoma, Washington, and was shot dead by police after they say he tried setting fire to a propane tank.
In a since-deleted Facebook post the Seattle Antifascist Action had praised van Spronsen, calling him a “good friend” and “comrade” who took action against a “fascist detention center.”
“Throughout history we idolize figures like John Brown for their courage to take the ultimate stand against oppression, and today we stand strong in our support for yet another martyr in the struggle against fascism. May his death serve as a call to protest and direct action,” they said.
The Puget Sound John Brown Gun Club held a vigil for van Spronsen and commemorated him and his decision to take “direct action to protect traditionally marginalized and threatened communities.” Absolutely no apology for one of their members firebombing a government building. These are the types of people Megan Squire is in cahoots with.
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There’s a near guarantee that Squire is not just monitoring “white nationalists.” Squire’s Whack-a-Mole database appears to lump genuine white nationalists in with garden-variety discontented conservatives. In a 2018 blog post Squire said she uses 12 different “far-right extremist ideologies” to classify her enormous database of people. The keywords used to denote some of the 12 “ideologies” are, as Far Left Watch pointed out, quite vague. Some of them include “anti-SJW,” “anti-Obama,” “rebel,” “patriot,” “No Sharia Law,” and so on.
This betrays the increasingly popular attitude that anyone who doesn’t conform to mainstream leftist narratives is liable to be branded as an “extremist.” There are significant distinctions between these “12 different far-right ideologies.” People like Squire who put them all in one basket give left-wing extremists carte blanche to smear anyone to the right of Joe Biden as a “fascist” or “Nazi,” which ipso facto stirs up the passions and leads left-wing extremists to want to intimidate or assault anyone who may be remotely right-wing.
Megan Squire’s employer, Elon University, has a mission statement that says it “embraces its founders’ vision of an academic community that transforms mind, body, and spirit and encourages freedom of thought and liberty of conscience.” Elon would do well to tell us how Squire’s research and activism uphold this mission in any way. It doesn’t take too keen of an observer to determine that left-wing extremists are profoundly anti-free thought and anti-liberty of conscience.
Does Elon University truly believe that Squire’s research and activism are examples of “putting knowledge into practice” and are “motivated by concern for the common good”? The ideology of Antifa and Redneck Revolt is in no way ordered toward the common good. The common good does not consist in absolute power for leftists and the suppression of anything that does not conform to its ideological orthodoxy.
How does Squire’s research and activism “foster respect for human differences”? Marxists and their sympathizers hate human differences, as is plainly evident from their writings and the historical implementations of Marxism. That includes but is not limited to differences in classes, ethnicities, outcomes, thoughts, and ideas. They’d prefer us to become an amorphous mass of subjects through state-imposed “equity.”
And, pray tell, does Elon University support faculty who implicitly encourage extremist behavior and violence? If not, why would they want to give such faculty the money and time to pursue these endeavors?
Incidentally, Squire’s likability as a professor has been found wanting, according to RateMyProfessors.com. Without taking into account the multiple negative ratings that have been left for her in March 2021—likely a trolling effort—she nevertheless had a subpar rating before that. Eight reviews written through December 2020 combined to total a quality rating of 25, which equals an average quality rating of 3.125 out 5 per reviewer. That’s a 62 out of 100—fully in mediocre territory. The students who left these reviews seemed to agree that she’s bland, detached, and appears to be much more interested in research than in teaching.
From December 16, 2020: “Enjoyed the class overall. She is a good enough teacher but agree her personality isn’t winning everyone over. Has some very interesting research but wasn’t approachable when I wanted to learn more. Oh well.”
From August 2, 2020: “Squire is towards the bottom of CS profs. She thinks she’s amazing because she cares more about her research than her students. Took two weeks off in the middle of this class to present at conferences which was rude. She makes you feel stupid if you don’t understand something; I avoided asking for help because of her demeanor. Really dated content.”
From June 24, 2020: “Not sure how she got her job. Her personality is enough to never take her class.”
From May 22, 2015: “Gives vague feedback when asking questions and seems to get frustrated by people asking for help, seems to expect students to catch on themselves. Gives vague in class instructions.”
Even Squire’s four- and five-star reviews dutifully noted her dry personality and unwillingness to devote much time to her students outside class. Her computer science colleagues at Elon, on the other hand, appear to get consistently better reviews.
That’s Megan Squire for you: academically credentialed, highly respected by the media, and yet more of an agitator and activist than a true academic. It’s unfortunate that Elon University has granted a post to someone connected with extremist groups and who turns a blind eye to their use of violence.
Given the track record of Antifa—did you know they’re still burning buildings and attacking police officers in Portland?—it’s not unreasonable to suggest that Squire implicitly encourages harm through her efforts to dox people and fearmonger about the “imminent threats” of “white supremacy” and “far-right extremism.” Her links to groups with a known history of violence and intimidation—which, by the way, conforms to the dictionary definition of terrorism—are unmistakable and unacceptable for someone cited as an “expert” and “authority.”
People like Squire are the real threat to civilization because they’re totalitarian and have widespread institutional power. They reduce all of reality to the material and the political and they try to suffuse everything with the cancer of leftist ideology. Western Civilization has seen this before and it’s unfortunately rearing its ugly head yet again.
Never stop condemning political violence, political censorship, and the politicization of all aspects of life. Witness to the good, the true, and the beautiful. Only a few good men with enough confidence and zeal are needed to change things for the better.