Up in the Ayers

William Ayers is receiving a lot of attention these days. During the 1960s and 1970s, he participated in bombings and riots as a leader of the Weather Underground. Surprisingly he was never prosecuted for these actions and later emerged from the underground and refashioned himself as an educator. He is now a professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago where his teaching interests include "teaching for social justice, urban educational reform, narrative and interpretive research, children in trouble with the law, and related issues."

During the current presidential campaign, he has received a lot of attention, both for his radical past, of which he wishes he could have done more, and for his more recent respectability where he sits on boards with people like Barack Obama.

Some of his fellow educators are up in arms about the fact that Prof. Ayers has been demonized and subject to slander and character assasination. Some 3,247 of them have signed an online petition in support of Bill Ayers, which can be found at www.supportbillayers.org. Here is what the profs have to say:

All citizens, but particularly teachers and scholars, are called upon to challenge orthodoxy, dogma, and mindless complacency, to be skeptical of authoritative claims, to interrogate and trouble the given and the taken-for-granted. Without critical dialogue and dissent we would likely be burning witches and enslaving our fellow human beings to this day. The growth of knowledge, insight, and understanding--- the possibility of change--- depends on that kind of effort, and the inevitable clash of ideas that follows should be celebrated and nourished rather than crushed. Teachers have a heavy responsibility, a moral obligation, to organize classrooms as sites of open discussion, free of coercion or intimidation. By all accounts Professor Ayers meets this standard. His classes are fully enrolled, and students welcome the exchange of views that he encourages.

The current characterizations of Professor Ayers---“unrepentant terrorist,” “lunatic leftist”---are unrecognizable to those who know or work with him. It’s true that Professor Ayers participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans. His participation in political activity 40 years ago is history; what is most relevant now is his continued engagement in progressive causes, and his exemplary contribution---including publishing 16 books--- to the field of education. The current attacks appear as part of a pattern of “exposés” and assaults designed to intimidate free thinking and stifle critical dialogue. Like crusades against high school and elementary teachers, and faculty at UCLA, Columbia, DePaul, and the University of Colorado, the attacks on and the character assassination of Ayers threaten the university as a space of open inquiry and debate, and threaten schools as places of compassion, imagination, curiosity, and free thought. They serve as warnings that anyone who voices perspectives and advances questions that challenge orthodoxy and political power may become a target, and this, then, casts a chill over free speech and inquiry and the spirit of democracy.

We, the undersigned, stand on the side of education as an enterprise devoted to human inquiry, enlightenment, and liberation. We oppose the demonization of Professor William Ayers.

There is so much that is interesting about this statement. Does the criticism of Bill Ayers constitute an attack on "free speech and inquiry and the spirit of democracy"? This seems a bit overwrought. Bill Ayers is being attacked for participating in riots and planting bombs. That is hardly the stuff of free speech and inquiry and the spirit of democracy. Instead, it reflects the use of violence to intimidate. While the statement acknowledges that he "participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans," most Americans did not resort to violence and the rejection of democracy which it entails.

The whole controversy over Bill Ayers involves the difference between past and present. Bill Ayers' past is unsavory and the Republican ticket has gone to great lengths to publicize it. Bill Ayers' present is more complicated. He writes books and sits on boards. His message may be just as radical, but his methods are now more acceptable. In what must seem like a recurrent theme in my writing, I think that everyone (but me) is wrong. The Republicans are trying to tie Bill Ayers' past to Barack Obama's present. However, Sen. Obama didn't participate in Prof. Ayers' past. He knew him as a former radical turned respectable. On the other hand, the professors are a bit paranoid when they think that criticism of Bill Ayers' past constitutes censorship of their present. Criticism of one man's violent past is not an attack on all who share similar views today.

The real issue here is whether people can change and whether we can put aside the past. The Bill Ayers of today does not set bombs and participate in riots. However, he is not remorseful about his past either, stating that he wishes he could have done more. I would be intrigued to take a class from Bill Ayers for the purpose of seeing whether he really does espouse freedom of inquiry and thought or indoctrination into radical dogma. However, I am not sure that I would want my daughters in his classroom.

On a completely unrelated note, the numbers behind the online petition may be a little bit inflated (just like ACORN's voter registrations). Weighing in at #852 is "Sal Monella" from the University of Texas at Austin. I checked the records of my hometown university and could not find any reference to Prof. Monella. However, perhaps he is in the Biology Department and I just missed his bio.