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Bill Ayers axed at U. of Wyoming

Mike

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UW announces cancellation of Bill Ayers visit
By AARON LeCLAIR/Boomerang Staff Writer • Wednesday, March 31, 2010 Print E-mail 38 comment(s) Share The University of Wyoming announced Tuesday that a public lecture by William “Bill” Ayers, a former 1970s radical antiwar protestor who is now a university professor, has been cancelled.

Ayers, 65, a distinguished professor of education and senior scholar at the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC), had been scheduled to give a public lecture from 4-6 p.m. Monday in the UW Education Auditorium.

The public lecture had been sponsored by the UW Social Justice Research Center, which is a privately endowed center that studies problems of oppression and inequalities among different social groups.

Titled “Trudge Toward Freedom: Educational Research in the Public Interest,” the talk would have focused on what makes education in a democracy different from other societies, as well as the importance of teachers seeing their students are more than just students, but whole human beings.

UW released a statement on its Web site on Tuesday afternoon explaining why the Social Justice Research Center had decided to cancel Ayers’ visit.

In the statement, the director of the center, UW Educational Studies chair Francisco Rios, apologized to the university community for any harm that may have come to it, and cited personal and professional reasons — including safety concerns — for the cancellation.

In reponse, UW President Tom Buchanan said, “I appreciate the consideration for the university that the re-evaluation demonstrated.”

Buchanan thanked Rios for taking the initiative and for his willingness to respect the interests of the UW community, including statewide constituencies.

“Re-evaluation of this event was unavoidable. I’m satisfied with the outcome,” he said. “Academic freedom is a core principle of any institution of higher education. But with that freedom comes an obligation to exercise free thought and free speech in concert with mutual respect and acknowledgement of broader resource and security impacts on the campus. The exercise of freedom requires a commensurate dose of responsibility.”

Buchanan dismissed the notion that UW caved in to public pressure to cancel Ayer’s visit, even though the university had received hundreds of calls and e-mails on Monday and Tuesday that were mostly against Ayers.

“Observers in and outside of the university would be incorrect to conclude that UW simply caved in to external pressure. Rather, I commended the director of the center for a willingness to be sensitive to the outpouring of criticism, evaluate the arguments, and reconsider the invitation.”

UW Media Relations director Jim Kearns said the university had received 300 calls and e-mails by Tuesday, most of which were against Ayers’ visit.

“The vast majority were against,” Kearn said. “There were a few supporters.”

According to the statement, Rios had cited “safety concerns” as one of the reasons for cancelling Ayers’ visit to UW. When asked what that meant, Kearns said he could not comment on the statement because Rios did not elaborate.

“I don’t know that that means,” Kearns said. “That was his words.”

Kearns also couldn’t answer when the last time was that UW had cancelled an event or public lecture.

“I’m sure there’s been cancellations in the past,” he said. “We don’t keep a record of such things.”

Ayers is considered to be a leader in elementary educational reform and social justice issues in education.

In addition to teaching and writing books, he is the founder of both the Small Schools Workshop (a resource for the design, restructuring and creation of small schools of 250-300 students in a heterogeneous mix) and the Center for Youth and Society (an institution of urban education innovation and advocacy).

Before his career in academia, however, Ayers was the co-founder of the Weather Underground, a radical anti-war group that claimed responsibility for a series of bombings of government buildings, police stations and banks in the early-to-mid-1970s.

Ayers participated in the bombings of the New York City Police Department in 1970, U.S. Capital Building in 1971 and Pentagon in 1972.

In addition, Ayers or the Weather Underground were suspected of the fatal 1970 bombing of the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) Park Station, which resulted in the death of Sgt. Brian V. McDonnell, 43.

However, neither Ayers nor the Weather Underground were ever charged or convicted for the SFPD bombing.

In both his book “Fugitive Days” and in an op-ed that was published in the New York Times on Dec. 6, 2008, Ayers notes that no one was killed or hurt in the Weather Underground’s bombings.

Beginning in 1972, Ayers was a fugitive of justice before turning himself in to the authorities in 1980.

A number of weapons- and bomb-related charges against Ayers were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct. Instead, he was convicted of possession of explosives and served no time in prison.

Ayers’ radical past came up in the 2008 presidential election, when he was linked to then-candidate Barack Obama. They had served together on the board of a Chicago charity, and Ayers had hosted a meet-the-candidate session for Obama at his homein the mid-1990s when Obama first ran for office.

Obama went on to condemn Ayers’ radical activities, and there was no evidence they were even close friends or that Ayers had advised Obama on policy, according to The Associated Press.

A more complete story will be published in the Wednesday edition of the Laramie Boomerang.
 
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