09/24/2010
Academia: In an era when our universities have become liberal
re-education camps, '60s radical William Ayers has been denied
professor emeritus status. For one brief instance, academia shows a spine.
It was, no pun intended, a bombshell. Ayers, a professor at the
University of Illinois, Chicago, and co-founder of the anti-war group
Weather Underground, was denied the honor he requested for himself
after a passionate speech by board chairman Chris Kennedy, son of the
late Sen. Robert Kennedy.
Kennedy said he could not confer the title "to a man whose body of
work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my
father." Kennedy referred to a 1974 book co-authored by Ayers,
"Prairie Fire," that was dedicated to, among others, RFK assassin
Sirhan Sirhan and "all political prisoners in the U.S."
Ayers' "body of work" includes Weather Underground bombings of NYPD
headquarters in June 1970, the U.S. Capitol Building in March 1971
and the Pentagon in May 1972. A review of his memoir, "Fugitive
Days," appeared oddly enough on Sept. 11, 2001, in the New York
Times. "I don't regret setting bombs," he told reviewer Dinitia
Smith. "I feel we didn't do enough." In the book, he said he found "a
certain eloquence in explosives."
John Murtaugh wasn't at the UIC board meeting, but he could have told
the members plenty. Murtaugh is the son of a judge whose home got
bombed by the Underground on the morning of Feb. 21, 1970. Three
gasoline-filled firebombs went off, two at the front door and one
under the family car.
Young Murtaugh's father, then a New York Supreme Court justice, was
presiding over the trial of the Panther 21, members of the Black
Panther Party indicted in a plot to bomb New York landmarks and
department stores. Ayers' wife, Bernadine Dohrn, later acknowledged
Weathermen responsibility for the bombing.
Ayers became an academic when he realized he could do more damage to
our society by controlling what our children are taught than by
blowing up buildings one at a time. An idea of what William Ayers had
in mind for America's schools was provided in his own words in
November 2006 at the World Education Forum in Caracas, Venezuela,
hosted by dictator Hugo Chavez.
With Chavez at his side, Ayers voiced his support for "the political
educational reforms under way here in Venezuela under the leadership
of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor
force of revolution. ... I look forward to seeing how . .. all of you
continue to overcome the failures of capitalist education as you seek
to create something truly new and deeply humane."
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