As Americans become more aware of the almost unbelievable amount of money stateside universities rake in from China — The Free Beacon sources estimate the Chinese Communist Party has given more than $426 million to U.S. universities since 2011 — there’s an interesting pushback from students attending at least one of the universities most culpable: Stanford.

The Free Beacon’s report on Stanford details a university that is “addicted to funding from China.”

The funding came through 42 donations throughout 2021 and into early 2022, according to the latest figures publicly available through the Education Department’s reporting database…

The opacity of this funding—and the millions of dollars China hands out to a range of prominent U.S. universities—could place Stanford in Congress’s crosshairs as the Republican-controlled House ramps up investigations into Chinese influence-peddling. Stanford University is not the only university raking in cash from China—the University of Delaware, which houses the Biden Institute, since 2017 has taken more than $6 million from the country. The House Select Committee on China is eyeing a potential probe into the Chinese Communist Party’s supply of more than $426 million to U.S. universities since 2011, according to sources who spoke to the Free Beacon.

Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.), a member of the House Select Committee on China, told the Free Beacon that Chinese funding for American schools has skyrocketed under the Biden administration because the administration stopped enforcing a federal code governing how foreign gifts and donations are reported.

Stanford, one of the country’s elite research institutions, has gotten the reputation in recent years for being almost oppressively liberal and eager to stifle free speech and diversity on campus. Most recently, Stanford law students acted embarrassingly sophomoric and harangued U.S. Circuit Judge S. Kyle Duncan, with the help of their Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Tirien Steinbach.

“It’s uncomfortable to say this to you as a person. It’s uncomfortable to say that for many people here, your work has caused harm,” Steinbach claimed during the judge’s attempt to speak to Stanford’s chapter of the conservative Federalist Society.

“This event is tearing the fabric of this community that I care about. and I’m here to support,” she hectored. “For many people at the law school who work here, who study here, and who live here, your advocacy — your opinions from the bench — land as absolute disenfranchisement of their rights.’

Couple that behavior with a boatload of foreign funding from unfriendly nations, and the once-vaunted institution starts to look like a threat to civility — and maybe even national security.

Which makes news that a new student group seeking to bring the university back to what liberal arts education used to be about: learning, fellowship, and most importantly, fun. A Substack called Pirate Wires has the details.

Amid a stifled social atmosphere on Stanford’s Campus, a new group of executives is taking charge of the Stanford student government — the Associated Students of Stanford University (ASSU) — after running on a “Fun Strikes Back” platform and winning the election handily. Sophia Danielpour and Kyle Haslett, neither of whom had prior student government experience, campaigned with a focus on reviving campus social life. They won by a margin of 674 votes, or nearly 20 percent of the electorate.

The two new student leaders — neither with much experience in student government — have a very simple platform that, apparently and surprisingly, resonated with their cohort.

In the runup to the election, Danielpour and Haslett put together an online petition — which amassed 490 signatures — spelling out their case:

STANFORD USED TO BE WEIRD AND WONDERFUL. WHERE DID THE FUN GO?

Stanford today is a completely sanitized version of its former self. Administrators have meddled in every aspect of student life to strip Stanford of its character. In the process, they disrupted the organic, wacky, and inclusive spontaneity that made Stanford so special.

A complex patchwork of policies and unnecessary administrative obstacles make it outrageously difficult for students to plan events. Funding and locations are never made available for the initiatives that students actually care about. Instead, they go towards lifeless and uninspired neighborhood events that make a mockery of what student life used to be.

These changes have so intensely limited the outlets for student life that Stanford feels far less inclusive than ever before. We all feel it. This is not what Stanford should be.

There are very few things to be openly optimistic about in the Biden years. Stanford’s student leaders moving the university back from ubiquitous and rancorous activism — even just a very little bit — is a tiny light glowing in the otherwise deep darkness of progressive socio-political culture. Nice work, kids. Keep it up.