AP: Lawsuit Seeks To Force UW To Allow Ayers Speech
CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) ― A lawsuit filed in federal court seeks a court order allowing former 1960s radical William Ayers to speak on the University of Wyoming campus.
The case filed Thursday is being brought by Ayers and UW student Meg Lanker. It contends the university violated their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly.
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Posted in Free speech
Tagged Bill Ayers, Legal issues, U of Wyoming
Inside Higher Ed: U. of Wyoming Calls Off William Ayers Lecture
The University of Wyoming has called off a planned lecture by William Ayers — the one-time leader of the Weather Underground who has become an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The appearance was criticized by many in Wyoming, and the Social Justice Research Center cited a variety of reasons, including “safety concerns,” for the decision. Other universities that have called off talks by Ayers have cited safety issues, but Wyoming’s announcement was unusual in arguing that state reaction was a legitimate factor to consider.
A statement from Tom Buchanan, president of the university, 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 acknowledgment of broader resource and security impacts on the campus. The exercise of freedom requires a commensurate dose of responsibility. 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. The University of Wyoming is one of the few institutions remaining in today’s environment that garners the confidence of the public. The visit by Professor Ayers would have adversely impacted that reputation.”
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Tagged Academic freedom, Bill Ayers, Free speech, U of Wyoming
Boston Globe: BC won’t air Ayers lecture by satellite
Decision frustrates student organizers
Boston College, citing pressure from Brighton residents and Boston police officers, refused to allow former radical William Ayers to deliver a student-sponsored lecture via satellite yesterday, frustrating student organizers who accused the college of sacrificing academic ideals to assuage public anger.
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BC Heights: Ayers video conference canceled, students to hold lecture on academic freedom in its place
The Boston College administration has decided not to allow a video conference with Bill Ayers, who was scheduled to speak in person at the University tonight, to take place on campus. The event was originally organized by the BC chapter of Americans for Informed Democracy (AID); it was canceled on Friday out of what a statement from the Division of Student Affairs cited as “concern for the safety and well being of our students and respect for the local community where the alleged actions of the Weather Underground continue to reverberate today.”
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Boston Globe: Ayers to speak at BC via satellite link
In an example of what a student organizer referred to as “academic freedom for the 21st century,” William Ayers, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and former member of the Weather Underground Organization, will address Boston College students – but not on campus. After administrators on Friday cancelled Ayers’ appearance, scheduled for this evening, students scrambled to find an off-campus venue, said Melissa Roberts, vice president of the College Democrats of Boston College. They found a large enough location at the last minute, Roberts said, so Ayers will speak via satellite from Chicago. The talk, which is open only to BC students, faculty, and staff, will be held at 6 p.m. in Devlin Hall.
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Inside Higher Ed: Banned in Boston
The norm for protests over a William Ayers appearance on campus these days is for conservative critics to say that the University of Illinois at Chicago professor shouldn’t be given a forum to speak because of the past violence of the Weather Underground, of which he was once a leader.
At Boston College, the debate has taken a new twist — with the college calling off a talk by Ayers planned for tonight and citing a police killing that has never been definitively linked to the Weather Underground and that Ayers and others insist his group had nothing to do with. Nonetheless, that 1970 police killing is still associated by many in Boston with the Weather Underground and remains a political flashpoint — as became clear on Friday.
Michael Graham, a local talk radio host, started calling on Boston College to revoke the invitation to Ayers, and he encouraged alumni, donors and others to call the college to demand that it deny Ayers a forum. Graham repeatedly linked Ayers and the Weather Underground to the 1970 killing of Walter Schroeder, the police officer, who was responding to a bank robbery by a group of radical students. Schroeder left a wife and nine children. His killing is periodically back in the news, and last received extensive coverage in 1993, when Katherine Ann Power — one of those involved in the incident, who had evaded capture and lived under another name — turned herself in.
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Detroit News: Bill Ayers protested at Oakland University event
Co-founder of group that bombed federal buildings shares education reform views.
ROCHESTER — Bill Ayers came to Michigan to talk about the future of education reform in the United States, but the anti-war activist, who participated in a campaign of bombing public buildings during the 1960s and ’70s, could not escape his past.
A line of 20 protesters with signs filled the back wall of a lecture hall at Oakland University on Tuesday as Ayers gave a brief talk on democracy and education.
Some booed when Ayers entered the room, while about 170 OU students, faculty and alumni applauded the college professor who discussed what he termed “savage inequities” in education that affect minorities, women and gays.
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Tagged Bill Ayers, Protests
USA Today: Ayers: Colo. professor was fired in ‘witch hunt’
DENVER (AP) — William Ayers, the former Weather Underground radical whose past made him a lightning rod in the 2008 presidential campaign, said Thursday that fired Colorado professor Ward Churchill became the victim of a “witch hunt” after comparing Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi.
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Tagged Academic freedom, Bill Ayers, Tenure & Promotion, Ward Churchill
The Chronicle News Blog: Georgia Southern U. Rescinds Speaking Invitation to William Ayers
Georgia Southern University has rescinded a speaking invitation to William Ayers, an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who remains controversial for his involvement in the 1960s in the radical group the Weather Underground.
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Illinoishomepage.net: Bill Could Boot Ayers From U of I
Bill Could Boot Ayers From U of I
Reported by: Stacey Morgan / WCIA 3 News
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A controversial U of I professor could be out of a job if one lawmaker has his way. William Ayers was called a radical and a terrorist for bombing government buildings to protest the Vietnam war.
But Senator Larry Bomke from Springfield doesn’t think he should be teaching in Illinois. He wants anyone who’s committed an act of violence against the United States or Illinois to be banned. While Ayers falls on that list, Bomke says he’s not picking on him.
“It’s not specifically for him,” says the Senator. “And it may be that he embellished whether they did or didn’t do these bombings, and if that’s the case than the shoe doesn’t fit. But if the shoe fits, well, then he should be gone. ”
Bomke says he probably wouldn’t have even known that Ayers was working for the U of I had it not been for the presidential election. You may remember, the Republican Party tried to connect President Obama with Ayers after they served on two boards together.
So far this bill has only been introduced to the Senate. It now sits in committee.
Ayers is expected at the U of I Champaign-Urbana Campus in March. He will be living with students in Allen Hall.
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Posted in Government
Tagged Bill Ayers, Free speech, Government
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