Bill Ayers, a leader of the Weather Underground, the group of domestic terrorists that protested the Vietnam War by bombing government buildings, gave a speech at Millersville University last week. In fact, he delivered the annual Anna Funk Lockey lecture in education. Talk about re-inventing yourself.

Ayers is currently a well-regarded education professor at the University of Illinois/Chicago. He began his academic career as a kindergarten teacher and now markets himself as an expert on urban education reform. Millersville University, a mid-sized state school located in south central Pennsylvania, had been much criticized for inviting the man who once bragged that he bombed the Pentagon and wanted to “kill all the rich people.”

Several Republicans, serving in the Pennsylvania state legislature, even tried to persuade Millersville’s administration to rescind the invitation, but the school’s president, Dr. Francine G. McNairy, publicly defended Ayers. She released a strong statement about academic freedom and free inquiry, and noted that his visit was being paid for with private funds. McNairy also stated that she disapproved of Ayers’ past actions but took a shot at the critics by playing the ‘for the children’ card. “It is regrettable that those individuals who oppose his visit have focused their criticisms on his infamous past rather than the vastly more important issue of how to close educational achievement gaps between urban students and their non-urban peers,” wrote McNairy.

Since I live in the area, I attended Ayers’ presentation. Bottom line: The Anna Funk Lockey endowment should demand a refund. Ayers’ vapid presentation — mostly about what it takes to be a good teacher — was a hodgepodge of greeting-card truisms.

To Ayers, a teacher works in a "magical profession." He is not the commander of the ship, but one who is "on a voyage with his students." Teachers "don’t have a vocabulary to describe … what they do," but they should "create curriculum" that emphasizes "doing and making" because students need to "learn from nature not about it." And "the problems we see in urban schools are problems we see everywhere" because "we live in troubling times." But don’t forget to "love the kids" and "love yourself."

The one time that Ayers might have chilled the youthful idealism of the budding educators was when he suggested that they should include maps and books in the classrooms, because "if you have an illiterate environment, and it’s reading time, don’t be surprised if your kids aren’t hooked on reading." Books and maps in a classroom? Who knew?

As for being an agent of change (remember that Ayers, along with Barack Obama, was an integral part of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, whose mission it was to reform public schools with the multi-million dollars with which the group was entrusted), Ayers argued that not only do schools need more resources, but spending on education should be "unprecedented." Since Millersville is a liberal liberal arts school, the audience thoroughly enjoyed his presentation. Perhaps it was his self-deprecating manner, or the hoop earrings he wore, or his trendy cultural references to slam poetry contests and tattoos or all of the above. In any case, Ayers, who once lived as a fugitive while he avoided federal authorities, remains the master of evasion.

His talk conveniently left out many inconvenient truths about those Chicago public schools which he and his buddy Barack worked so diligently to reform. For instance, the schools currently spend over $11,000 per pupil, and four of its institutions recently appeared on the ‘25 worst performing public schools in the United States’ list. Nor did the Champion of the Poor reveal that his own sons attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, a private entity.

No discussion, either, of the drug gangs, terrible test scores, high drop-out rates, and cronyism that the Windy City’s schools are known for, because no difficult queries were allowed to be asked of Ayers during the question and answer period. The only tough-love moment during the entire evening was the presence of security. Only those with a ticket were allowed to gain entrance to the lecture and the campus simulcast of the lecture; handbags and backpacks were searched and re-searched before admission, and police barricades were erected. The protestors outside the student center received a decent amount of media attention, but their numbers were few.

Contrast Ayers’ reception to how an acquaintance of mine – Don Feder – was treated at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst when he visited there earlier this month. Invited by the college Republicans to speak about hate crimes laws, the former award-winning Boston Herald columnist, lawyer, and exemplary citizen, was repeatedly heckled, jeered, and interrupted. Even a furry critter was recruited for the motley ‘Harrass Feder’ Team. Writes Feder: “Among other antics, a barefoot girl tried to bring a rat into the lecture. Rumor had it that Rat Girl planned to let the rodent loose to raise the level of discourse.” Due to the commotion, Feder could not continue his presentation. He quit speaking. When he did, his tormentors, egged on by the International Socialist Organization, cheered.

Do you think that the chancellor of UMass/Amherst – Dr. Robert C. Holub – issued a public apology to Don Feder, saying he would take action against those (the whole circus was caught on video) who violated the student code of conduct? Do you think any campus police will be reprimanded for dereliction of duty? If you answered “NO!” then you, sadly, are only too well aware of how the game is played, all too often: Freedom of speech for progressives; censorship for conservatives. Antonio Gramsci would be proud of these administrators, professors, and students. So proud.

Isabel Lyman holds a doctorate in social science and is the author of The Homeschooling Revolution (2000).

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Gardenflower said:

	Obama's Brown Shirts If the treatment of Mr. Feder is any indication of what we can expect from our youth through Obama's new national service program, [GIVE & SERVE Acts which passed through congress] it is very scary indeed. Intimidation can reduce to submission the noblest heart.
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March 27, 2009
Votes: +6

RichardR369 said:

	Writing the School Perhaps we should write the school, CC several organizations and expose this abhorrent behavior by the school.
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March 28, 2009
Votes: +3

CheGuevara said:

	after after the Obama brown shirts, it will make a big difference what you said as a child, or if you have any subversiveness in the old back ground... they go after rich liberals and then the conservatives, it makes no difference (your affiliation) the fact you are out spoken will be your warrant for arrest even if your doctrine is the same as the oppressors them self's.
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March 28, 2009
Votes: +0

archtoplee said:

Who will they go after first? Those who acquire political power and resort to police state tactics to enforce their edicts, "go after" their most likely competitors first. Once they are eliminated they don't necessarily target "conservatives" or "liberals," they go after anyone, even the non political person and terrorize him. Wholesale terrorism is the idea. Terrorism is designed to bring about a pacified populace. Che Guevara, for example, would conduct his "tribunals" and the men that he enjoyed condemning the most and ordered having them shot the next morning, were those whose grieving mothers would personally beg for an audience with Guevara to plead with the revolutionary that their son was not an enemy of the state - that their son was not even politically active! But the real power in Cuba was Fidel and Raul. The Guevara problem was solved by the Castro brothers by sending him off to South America to be eliminated by someone else. They new that this idiot Guevara was no leader but he had become a revolutionary icon that could turn on Castro. Once his usefullness as a live icon was over his death continues to serve socialist purposes despite his cowardly death. Cowardly? He was supposed to have "bravely" died a martyr's death shooting it out with Bolivian troops. But his side arm had not even been fired. He tried to bargain for his life but he had no mother to plead his case for him. http://jbs.org/index.php/news-feed-archive/1231-the-history-channel-shills-for-che-guevara

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March 29, 2009
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pyegirlrn said:

	Whose side is our educational system on? Yes, it is difficult to understand why the educational community in large part lauds those who would destroy our country while showing disdain for those who show respect and patriotism. In addition, the NEA endeavors to make homeschooling illegal so that they can have our childrens's minds to be filled with liberal propaganda.
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March 29, 2009
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MarkGlen said:

	Communist Governments have to keep killing If Bill Ayers gets the government he is working for here in the U.S., a Communist government, then the Communist bosses will slaughter him and his kind before they wake up. They will be allowed to live about 2 months or less. Us right-wingers will be killed last, a year later. If they killed us first the people might get suspicious.
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March 30, 2009 | url
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izzy said:

	Breaking News: More nonsense at UMass The free speech of students peaceably distributing The Minuteman, the conservative newspaper of UMass, was suppressed. Watch the video. http://www.thefire.org/index.php/torch/#10388
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April 02, 2009 | url
Votes: +1