Posted on 01/19/2009 3:11:35 PM PST by fiodora
An American education professor, one of the founders of a radical 1960s group known as the Weather Underground, which was responsible for a number of bombings in the United States in the early 1970s, was turned back at the Canadian border last night.
Dr. William Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago and a leader in educational reform, was scheduled to speak at the Centre for Urban Schooling at University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. But that appearance has now been temporarily cancelled.
"I don't know why I was turned back," Ayers said in an interview this morning from Chicago. "I got off the plane like everyone else and I was asked to come over to the other side. The border guards reviewed some stuff and said I wasn't going to be allowed into Canada. To me it seems quite bureaucratic and not at all interesting ... If it were me I would have let me in. I couldn't possibly be a threat to Canada."
Ayers made headlines this summer after Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin suggested that then-Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama hung around with domestic terrorists like Ayers. The professor had hosted a meet-the-candidate event at his home for Obama in 1995, during his run for the state Senate. They also worked together on Chicago school reform and served on a charity board together.
Ayers first rose to notoriety in the early 1970s with the Weather Underground. The group claimed responsibility for bombings at the U.S. Capitol, a Pentagon restroom and New York City police headquarters. In 1970, a townhouse in New York the group was using to build a bomb blew up.
Nowadays, Ayers is known more for his work in educational reform. He has written or edited more than a dozen books including his 2001 memoir Fugitive Days and travels around the world giving lectures on education.
Jeffrey Kugler, executive director of the Centre for Urban Schooling, is deeply disappointed in the turn of events. For him it's a question of academic freedom. "It's kind of ironic the day before Barack Obama is going to become president this is what the Canadian border security has done," said Kugler. "It seems ridiculous that one university can't have a professor from another university to come and give a lecture on an important educational topic."
Kugler waited for five hours at the Toronto Island airport for Ayers. He was with a lawyer, but the border guard refused to allow Ayers to see the lawyer.
"The entire four or five hours he was not allowed to have representation at all. To me this is an issue of academic freedom. He could not be a threat to anyone ever. Anyone who knows anything about this man he's a distinguished scholar at the University of Illinois and he has been involved in education reform over the past 15 years. To imagine in any way he was a threat to Canada is really absurd."
Ugghhh....you are a criminal?
First thing I thought - goodness knows we coddle enough of them now! Glad we turfed him, just sorry we had to send him back to you. He really should have been redirected to Cuba or something, like a piece of lost luggage.
ShadenFruede!
If you read leftist propaganda, that is.
“Why is this man leaving the country during the coronation of the one?”
Then how will Obama get into Canada?
Maybe it's that little matter of being a known domestic terrorist.
Canada is becoming more conservative than the United States...imagine that.
I hope he was upset :)
I guess Canada has more brains than we do now.
but but...I thought he was reformed.
Yes. Yes.
Educational reform.
"A leader."
"Change we can believe in."
Blah, blah, blah.
LOL! Sorry, we sold them “as is”. Kinda like a used car you pick up off the clunker lot.
Give them ten years. Eventually they have to get better.
Woah... Canada won’t let Terrorists in? Maybe there is hope for them yet!
Although I sure wish it was the other way around: Ayers denied entry into the US.
> “I don’t know why I was turned back,” Ayers said ...
How about “you’re a freaking terrorist, you commie jerk.”
The Canadians aren’t stupid enough to knowingly import a terrorist.
You got that right.
Canadians smarter than Americans? YES, in this matter at least.
Purr.....
Hey Ayers!
If you don’t like the beauracracy ...why didn’t you show your ‘revolutionary” spirit and gun your way out of the Canadian Border patrol???
What a wimp!
Pitiful..reduced to a whiny capitalist pig making big bucks giving speeches on how to be a radical!! Gosh, next thing you know, you’ll avoid paying your taxes on the speeches...no, wait, our new IRS Chief already has done that!
Four or five hours without representation by your attorney??? those police and innocent victims you bombed and killed had NO representation either, you SCUMBAG. YOU COWARDLY PHONY..go back to your multi million dollar mansion townhouse in Chicago-—oh, and be sure to call the PO—LICE again when a reporter from Fox comes to your doorstep!
Besides you’re getting old and ugly!
I wouldn’t be surprised Obie nominates his pal Billy as his Secretary of Education. Wait and see...
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