Boston Globe: Patrick assails new UMass invitation for convicted terrorist
Governor Deval Patrick today assailed the speaking invitation that a group of UMass Amherst faculty extended to a convicted terrorist, even after criticism from state and university leaders scuttled earlier plans for a speech.
“I am more than a little disappointed about this invitation having been extended,” Patrick said at a State House news conference. “I fully get the point, and respect the idea of free speech. But I think it is a reflection of profound insensitivity to continue to try and have this former terrorist on the campus.”
Ray Luc Levasseur, the founder and former leader of the radical revolutionary group United Freedom Front, is scheduled to speak Thursday night. An earlier invitation for him to speak at a library symposium was canceled last week amid pressure from Patrick’s office and from family members of victims of his group’s attacks, which included the April 1976 blast on the third floor of the Suffolk County Courthouse that injured two dozen people.
Follow
