"Guilty as hell, free as a bird—America is a great country," he said. Chicago Magazine, No Regrets, Aug 2001. Bill Ayers: Trudging Toward Freedom Bill Ayers, a professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago, became a focal point of the 2008 presidential campaign. Described by Republican nominee John McCain as “a washed up terrorist,” Ayers was a prominent figure with Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground in the late 1960s and 1970s. After spending several years living underground as the U.S. government pursued charges against him that it later dropped, Ayers went on to become...