Posted on 02/25/2009 2:49:41 AM PST by markomalley
BOULDER, Colo. — When it comes to being an academic under fire, ex-Weatherman Bill Ayers can empathize with fired University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill.
Currently a professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago, Ayers’ 22 years of teaching did little to prepare him for the media firestorm that enveloped him during last year’s presidential election.
Conservatives — and vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in particular — made much of then-candidate Barack Obama’s links to Ayers, who co-founded the violent leftist group Weather Underground in the 1960s.
Ayers, who’s coming to CU next week to appear with Churchill at an academic-freedom rally, still finds himself explaining his radical past — although he stops short of apologizing for his actions.
“I did break the law,” Ayers said in an interview with the Colorado Daily on Tuesday. “I did take account for breaking the law. I was punished in the ways that the law found appropriate.
“And there it is — it’s done.”
Yet for some vocal critics, it’s far from over.
Many continue to label Ayers an “unrepentant terrorist” because of the Weather Underground’s bombing campaigns in the '60s and '70s — accusations the onetime fugitive dismissed, saying they merely reveal his critics’ own political agendas.
“It wasn’t that I was ‘under scrutiny,’” Ayers said of the campaign attacks. “It’s that there was a profoundly dishonest narrative being created and then being repeated constantly. The dishonest narrative was manufactured for a political reason ... to bring down Barack Obama by saying he hung out with shady characters.
“That wasn’t an honest portrait of either me or our relationship, and yet it was serving a very small and very disgusting political purpose.”
Perhaps that experience is what promoted Ayers to accept an invitation from three CU student groups to appear alongside Churchill on March 5 at an event dubbed “Forbidden Education and the Rise of Neo-McCarthyism,” to be held in University Memorial Center’s Glenn Miller Ballroom.
Churchill, an ethnic studies professor, gained national attention in 2005 when news surfaced of an essay he’d written three years earlier about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In it, he referred to World Trade Center workers as “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Nazi Adolf Eichmann, the so-called “architect of the Holocaust.”
Following the outcry over Churchill’s remarks, CU began probing his work. He was fired in 2007 for academic misconduct after officials concluded he plagiarized and lied about historical facts in his writings.
Churchill — who has not responded to e-mailed interview requests — sued the university to get his job back; that case goes to trial in Denver on March 9.
“I don’t think anybody can raise a question that Ward Churchill was singled out and gone after because of his comments after 9/11 — because of his politics,” Ayers said. “It was a political witch hunt. That’s what happened to him.”
There are numerous cases of historians and scholars committing much greater academic errors in their scholarship than the Churchill investigation uncovered, Ayers said, and they were allowed to be corrected and move on with their careers.
The only difference in Churchill’s case, Ayers insisted, was the professor’s outspoken political leanings.
“The university is a particular space in a society like ours where we have to not only entertain, but expect the widest diversity of ideas that go way outside what’s conventional,” Ayers said. “Without teachers who are willing to raise alternative views, investigate other possibilities, think beyond the box of convention ... we’re doomed as a society and we’re going backwards rapidly without (them).”
The pattern of repressing such free thought in the university creates a ripple effect throughout the rest of academia, Ayers said.
“If Ward Churchill can be brought down from his accomplishments and successes, what chance do I have if I’m a teacher in Denver?” Ayers said.
In the end, Ayers defends not just Churchill’s writings and ideas, but the very notion of dissent.
“I’ve lived a kind of life of dissent my whole adult life,” Ayers said. “I think dissent is essential to democracy and I think that in order to be an active citizen, you have to move beyond the stance of, ‘Whatever my country does is fine,’ and you have to move into a direction of saying, ‘I want my country to live up to the best ideals of its history and its values.’
“And that requires us to dissent again and again and again.” |
What a piece of garbage this anti-American idiot is.
Speaking of witches, why doesn’t somebody hunt this murderering little weasel down and deliver his reward.
Once a terrorist, always a terrorist. Some things just don’t go away.
He'll get his "reward" soon enough....
From the vault of memory:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1334073/posts
Terror Teacher, Take Two- the vile Ward Churchill Saga
various FR links & stories | 02-02-05 | the heavy equipment guy
Why does anybody take the snivellings of this drooling traitor terrorist seriously?
Hey Billy, in your own words, you are, “Guilty as sin, and free as a bird.”
Despicable, unspeakable, evil communist filth.
After six decades of evil, six decades of terrorism and support for violence against the innocent, and six decades of support for socialism and anarchy without ever being on the right side of a single issue, Ayers finally got something right. He can count on dissent in all its glory from every patriotic American in the country. The bomber's protege spoke last night, triggering dissent. The terrorist's most prominent follower is making a grab for absolute power, and a huge number of Americans are responding with dissent. The difference is that free people can be a whole lot more effective in dissent than a mindless thug who thinks random nail-bombs are the answer.
This killer has been walking around free for 40 years. His reward is freedom and he spreads his venom like a cobra.
He said himself "we didn't do enough." He is an unrepentant terrorist. That is a matter of objective fact, not a "label". Sheesh, when will journalists learn to stick to facts again.
Yes it was and they got themselves a real live witch. I call that success
Unfortunately, they just FIRED him. Should have BURNED him at the stake.
Unfortunately, they just FIRED him. Should have BURNED him at the stake.
Cheers!
The thing about witch hunts is that sometimes you do nail the witch.
You know, I’ve always wondered about this - both Bill Ayers and Ward Churchill seem somewhat intelligent and seem like people who could have lead normal lives.
What do you think happened to them that caused them to become traitors to the country in which they were raised?
I disagree- Churchill may not be dumb as a box of rocks but he is nowhere near as brilliant as he thinks he is.
The stupidity of someof his comments proves that
A political witch was found and burned. There must be thousands of such at the stake exterminations. Ayers is one of the most needed.
And why would any one give Ayers any public forum to speak from? The man should be in jail. It is a travesty that he is a public educator. There have been unsuccessful efforts to get his wife removed from her position, to no avail. This man’s sense of reality is so distorted and whoever protects him in his position has terrible motives. They are not witch hunts....they are hunts to keep the lying and delusional away from the minds of our vulnerable young people. If Ayers believed in true social justice, he would be behind bars.
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