It's only an honorary status and the rebuke is long overdue, but the University of Illinois finally treated ex-Weatherman Bill Ayers with the kind of treatment he merits.
Chicago Sun Times:
When retiring University of Illinois at Chicago professor Bill Ayers co-wrote a book in 1973, it was dedicated in part to Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy.
That came back to haunt Ayers when the U. of I. board, now chaired by Kennedy's son, considered his request for emeritus status Thursday. It was denied in a unanimous vote.
Before the vote, an emotional Chris Kennedy spoke out against granting the status to Ayers. "I intend to vote against conferring the honorific title of our university to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father, Robert F. Kennedy," he said.
"There is nothing more antithetical to the hopes for a university that is lively and yet civil, or to the hopes of our founding fathers for their great experiment of a self-governing people, than to permanently seal off debate with one's opponents by killing them."
The fact that he and his wife and fellow radical Bernardine Dohrn enjoyed long academic careers after their radical, acts never repudiated by them, remains a blot on academia.
Update:
Tom Maguire notes the Sun Times article fudges on the Ayers-Obama connection on the Annenberg challenge where it is obvious Ayers brought Obama onboard that ill-fated "education reform" effort. He also suggests this tardy Kennedy objection to Ayers may signal a Kennedy family-Obama split.
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