Ayers to defile Purdue University

By Matthew May

William Ayers will appear at Purdue University on September 24th as a panelist about urban schools as part of the first annual Cummings-Perrucci Annual Lecture on Race, Class, and Gender Equality.

Ayers will hit the campus in West Lafayette, Indiana, according to a story in today’s Lafayette Journal & Courier under the curious headline “Ex-radical to attend forum at Purdue.” Ex-radical?

According to the story, some groups are already organizing protests against Ayers and the university. Political Science professor Harry Targ – who was singled out in David Horowitz’s book as one of America’s most dangerous academics – takes his cue from the Obama playbook to downplay the protests and further cloud the murky past, saying it is “foolish” to make a political issue out of the Arers appearance:

“I assume he was invited because of his competency in education,” Targ said, apparently unaccompanied by a laugh track. “It is unfortunate that people want to protest this.

“If there is any hoopla, it will be extraneous. It was 40 years ago when he did this stuff.”

Well, by that standard, may we Purdue graduates look forward down the road to Theodore Kaczynski giving a remote lecture on the dangers of TNT?

Ayers was invited to this event by the Department of Sociology. There are some within the College of Liberal Arts at Purdue who insist on not merely inviting individuals of questionable merit, but intentionally giving radical lunatics – and now a real, live self-proclaimed terrorist – a forum to spew their oft-discredited drivel. Two years ago it was the political science department helping underwrite an appearance by Cindy Sheehan. Now it is William Ayers.

This invitation to Ayers is but the latest example of why any personal funds earmarked for donation to higher education from this Purdue grad will be headed to Hillsdale, Michigan. But if some at Purdue are so eager to have the terrorist as a guest on campus, they could do one thing to raise money from we disgruntled Boilermakers: Invite Ayers to a public forum to answer some questions posed by a Purdue graduate named Jack Cashill.