In a rare move, the University of Illinois Board of Trustees voted on Thursday to deny emeritus status to William Ayers, the professor of education controversial for his radical past. According to news accounts, the trustees’ decision followed an emotional statement by the board’s chairman, Christopher Kennedy, who is a son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy said that as a matter of conscience, he could not endorse “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.” Mr. Ayers is a co-author of the 1974 book Prairie Fire, whose dedicatees include Sirhan Sirhan, the man who assassinated Robert Kennedy. A university spokesman, Thomas Hardy, said he could not remember another instance of a retired professor’s being denied emeritus status. Mr. Ayers, who taught at the university’s Chicago campus, announced his retirement last month.
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23 Responses to U. of Illinois Trustees Deny Emeritus Status to William Ayers
disembedded - September 24, 2010 at 8:26 am
Clean up the spam!!
dvacchi - September 24, 2010 at 9:46 am
Good – some people get carried away with “free thinking”. For crying out loud Ayers is a domestic terrorist, I can’t believe they even considered emeritus status in the first place.
crunchycon - September 24, 2010 at 9:48 am
Good decision; good riddance. Illinois has enough negative press to deal with lately without conferring lifetime honor on an unrepetent home-grown terrorist who still says they “didn’t do enough” in the 60s when they were plotting against the US Govt. and bombing buildings.
crunchycon - September 24, 2010 at 9:49 am
digo – unrepentant
consejera - September 24, 2010 at 9:57 am
Feeling immense pride about my school today!
lcrandal - September 24, 2010 at 10:14 am
“Unrepentant terrorist” Do you know the professor and how he feels about his past behavior? Or, are these just echoes of the right wing sound machine? (I wonder how many of those commenting are old enough to even remember what it was like in the sixties.) Yes, Ayers behavior in that violent decade was illegal and extreme, but is the U of I going to make it a policy to base emeritus status on what people did in their twenties before they began their academic careers, rather than what they did during those careers.
dziuk - September 24, 2010 at 10:42 am
To paraphrase Groucho Marx ” I would not be proud to belong to the same category as an avowed terrorist” Philip Dziuk Professor Emeritus
crunchycon - September 24, 2010 at 11:06 am
lcrandal — Ayers has written books decades after the 60s on the subject, and as recently as a few years ago STILL voiced his belief that they hadn’t done enough back in the 60s. While I was young in the 60s, I was not unaware of the goings-on, living in a town close enough to the Illinois campus when the influx of families moving out of Champaign and Urbana after the “riots” and the resultant conversations in many households as to the reasons for such a huge growth in the community in such a short period of time.Had Ayers distanced himself from the violence he perpetrated on the citizens and government of the US, it would be different. Had he spoken out that his actions were those of a 20-something and that he regretted his actions or that he at least didn’t condone his actions in retrospect, perhaps the Board of Trustees would have made a different decision.The BofT made the right decision.
swish - September 24, 2010 at 11:09 am
#7: You do belong such a category: human. And also (I think): male. There are tons of bad examples in both of those groups. But if most professors emeriti are pretty solid citizens, I doubt one member would taint the whole group.Ayers, too, has been fairly straight and narrow for several decades. But if the University wants to deny him emeritus status, that’s their privilege.
mmeisens - September 24, 2010 at 11:56 am
This is at least something. He (and his wife) should be in jail for life. This is a couple who are poster children for what is rotten about the human race. He is at least denied an honorary title and library privileges. Why is his wife not being thrown out? She is more evil the Ahmenedjad. Well it is a close race.
2011phdstudent - September 24, 2010 at 12:42 pm
Hopefully other schools will follow suit and stop offering honorary doctorates to mass murders like the presidents of the United States.
akprof - September 24, 2010 at 1:17 pm
At my University, emeritus status was reserved for faculty who made really significant contributions to the institution in addition to reaching professor status (and not everyone does reach professor status) Believe me, not every retiring professor is granted emeritus status. If no one is denied at Illinois, then what’s the point of even having a review for the “honor” – is it even considered an honor?
cu_alum - September 24, 2010 at 1:49 pm
I respect Christopher Kennedy’s personal feelings, but those feelings are not a proper basis for a decision by the university. I could understand this decision if the board felt Ayers’ past made it inappropriate to give him emeritus status, but it seems that isn’t what happened. If this decision was really based on a 1974 book dedication that (rightly) offended the trustees chair then the trustees should examine how they make decisions.
crunchycon - September 24, 2010 at 4:51 pm
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crunchycon - September 24, 2010 at 4:52 pm
having trouble submitting info
crunchycon - September 24, 2010 at 4:53 pm
From an AP article today:”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,” Kennedy added.”There can be no place in a democracy to celebrate political assassinations or to honor those who do so,” he said.
crunchycon - September 24, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Later, Kennedy told the Sun-Times that he had not seen Ayers display any signs of remorse.
crunchycon - September 24, 2010 at 4:56 pm
“There’s no evidence in any of his interviews or conversations that he regrets any of those actions
crunchycon - September 24, 2010 at 4:57 pm
– that’s a better question for him, ” he told the paper.
crunchycon - September 24, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Trustees approved emeritus status for a number of other retirees Thursday, and Hardy said it was unusual for anyone to be turned down.”Nobody could remember a similar circumstance in the last several decades,” he said after asking other university officials.Retired faculty ask for emeritus status, and it’s then signed off on by several levels of university administration before heading to trustees, Hardy said.
crunchycon - September 24, 2010 at 4:58 pm
Ayers was a fugitive for years for his role with the Weather Underground until surrendering in 1980. Charges against him were dropped because of government misconduct.
marvchron - September 24, 2010 at 5:30 pm
As a Viet Nam veteran as well as a UIC College of Education alumnus, I believe the board made the right decision. However, in my view the real issue may be: why was he hired in the first place?
richkahn - September 27, 2010 at 10:52 am
This is a sad decision that hurts the students in the college of education and the larger public standing of the university. Bill Ayers has already been a Distinguished Professor there for years (how can he earn that honor but then not be worthy of the honor of Emeritus, which as the article describes is now a commonplace across universities?). He is also the head of Division B, Curriculum Studies for the American Education Research Association, the world’s pre-eminent organization for scholars of education…Division B being one of the larger and more powerful wings in the organization. He is asked routinely to provide keynote speeches both nationally and internationally and has been a major figure in the fight for more DEMOCRATIC and PARTICIPATORY education. Honors and critique should be based on his full record, not on an alleged anonymous authorship of a political broadside from 36 years ago. Shameful behavior on the Board and Kennedy’s part…this is not an honor to Robert Kennedy, but a disgrace to his own legacy of democratic activism and social education.