Tag: William Ayers

Last week, an Ann Coulter appearance was canceled by the University of Ottowa. A few days ago, Karl Rove was heckled at an event promoting his book, threatened with a citizen's arrest by Code Pink, and ended up leaving the stage.

Now the University of Wyoming has canceled a speech on education and social justice by William Ayers.

While Ms. C. is just a media maven with no expertise that could rise to the level of a contribution of ideas, Ayers is an expert in his field, and arguably, Rove, as a political strategist who worked closely with a President, had information and insights to share with the public.

Canceling speeches and appearances for objections to ideology, and misrepresenting the grounds for nixing the appearance as a "security risk" seems like a bad idea. What's causing this trend, and is there a solution?

Former C.U. Professor Ward Churchill and current University of Illinois (Chicago) Professor William Ayers teamed up Thursday night in Boulder to speak to students at the University of Colorado. The topic: Academic Freedom. The title of their presentation: "Forbidden Education and the Rise of NeoMcCarthyism."

Ayers talked about Obama's presidency (nothing unusual from what the article reports) and the danger if teachers are not allowed to challenge their students due to fear about raising certain topics or asking certain questions.

"We should always be developing a curriculum of questioning," Ayers told the students. "As a teacher, your responsibility is to challenge dogma and orthodoxy, not to just accept it."

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The Swamp has a long profile on University of Chicago Professor William Ayers. I don't think that Obama's association with Ayers is a problem because of Ayers' Weatherground past. And I support President Clinton's pardon and clemency for the two members of the group because it was based upon valid considerations and because we need Presidents who give more, not fewer grants of clemency.

In addition, I have admired Ayers and his wife, Bernadine Dohrn, for taking in and raising Chesa Boudin from the age of 14 months, when his parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, were arrested for their misdeeds with the Weather Underground. Chesa went on to graduate from Yale and become a Rhodes Scholar and an advocate for children of the imprisoned. A few years ago he wrote a very moving article, I am the son of Inmate 83A6158, about a jail visit with his parents. Kathy Boudin finally was released on parole in 2003.

I also applaud the work that Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn and Obama have done on behalf of juvenile offenders.

For the past few weeks, however, I have been concerned about a totally different issue with respect to Prof. Ayers: his political views concerning Palestine and Israel. The LA Times recently explored Obama's connection to those politics through his and Ayers' service on the board of the Woods Fund, during which time he and Ayers voted to award a grant of $70,000 to an organization created by Rashid Khalidi. The article raises questions about the depth and sincerity of Obama's expressed support for Israel. [More...]