Who’s Behind the Academic Cabal Supporting Bill Ayers?

For a brief history of Bill Ayers and public education, check out “Revisiting AERA, Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground and Public Education.” It’s a 3,500-word crash course in Ayers, AERA, the Weather Underground and why it all matters for public education.

About a thousand academics have signed the petition over at SupportBillAyers.org.

Name and institution are required when signing. Oddly enough, the cabal behind this site has decided to stay in the shadows. Who’s behind the site? The domain registration information is currently inaccessible.

Is it connected to AERA? I’ll be shocked if it isn’t.

Michael Tomasky of the UK’s Guardian excerpted from the Ayers Loyalty Oath and reacted:

“America’s educators, or 633 of them as I write, have signed a petition in support of Bill Ayers. Read the whole thing here.

Some of it is unobjectionable. It seeks to establish his bona fides as a credible education pedagog. And there’s general rhetoric about academic freedom. Fine, fine, fine. Then they get to this:

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.

Participated passionately? He tried to set bombs. Martin Luther King participated passionately in the struggle for justice. The Freedom Riders. But the Weather Underground?

This is why I’m liberal and not a leftist (there is a difference, right-wingers, and please don’t ask me to explain it; go read some books). But I understand that, very broadly construed, this does emanate from “my side.” I don’t think this document will have any impact on the presidential race, but I just want to go on record as saying I would never sign something with a sentence like that in it.”

Same here, Michael. And, yes, some of us further right than you do have a pretty solid understanding of classical liberalism [as well as understanding that advising people to "read some books" is a rotten thing to say].

The sentences excerpted by Tomasky are bad, but the second paragraph of the statement is worse.

Here’s the Ayers Loyalty Oath in full. Are you going to sign it? Have any of your colleagues?

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EDUCATOR STATEMENT

We write to support our colleague Professor William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who is currently under determined and sustained political attack. Ayers is a nationally known scholar, member of the Faculty Senate at UIC, Vice President-elect of the American Educational Research Association, and sought after as a speaker and visiting scholar by other universities because of his exemplary scholarship, teaching, and service. Throughout the 20 years that he has been a valued faculty member at UIC, he has taught, advised, mentored, and supported hundreds of undergraduate, Masters and Ph.D. students. He has pushed them to take seriously their responsibilities as educators in a democracy – to promote critical inquiry, dialogue, and debate; to encourage questioning and independent thinking; to value the full humanity of every person and to work for access and equity. Helping educators develop the capacity and ethical commitment to these responsibilities is at the core of what we do, and as a teacher he has always embraced debate and multiple perspectives.

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.

——————-

“We oppose the demonization of Professor William Ayers.”

I don’t.

Tagged as: aera, barack obama, bernardine dohrn, bill ayers, john mccain, michael tomasky, supportbillayers.org, weather underground, william ayers