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Conservative students at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks are blasting the school for allowing a terrorist to visit the campus on Wednesday. Bill Ayers, invited to the school by Students for a Democratic Society, is a former member of Weather Underground, the domestic terrorist group responsible for the bombings of several government buildings in the 1960s and 70s as well as the murder of two police officers. Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) and the College Republicans have published an open letter to University of North Dakota President Charles E. Kupchella objecting to "this reprehensible man...being invited to the University...(and) having state institutions endorse terrorists." "I was shocked to see a flier with two University departments welcoming Ayers to our school," YAF President Harald Brevik said. (UND's Department of Educational Foundations and Research and the College of Education and Human Development are promoting the event.)The conservative students want President Kupchella to "stand up and speak out against the visit of a terrorist."In an email response to Brevik, Kupchella acknowledged that the university had, in effect, 'endorsed' the invitation to Ayers. But, Kupchella added, "I do not see how anyone could logically conclude that the University has therefore endorsed the things a speaker is alleged to have done some 40 years ago." Brevik noted that in a 2001 interview with the New York Times, Ayers -- looking back on his days as a fugitive -- said, "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough." (In one of those weird quirks, the interview was published on Sept. 11, 2001.)Even now, Ayers refuses to apologize for his terrorist acts against the United States, Brevik said. The left-wing student group Students for a Democratic Society is organizing Ayers' visit in cooperation with the University of North Dakota's 125th Anniversary celebration. (Ayers himself was involved with SDS when he was a student at the University of Michigan, and the FBI described the Weather Underground as "a small, violent offshoot of the Students for a Democratic Society.")Members of UND's Young Americans for Freedom said they plan to post fliers featuring Ayers' 1960s mug shot around campus.They also plan to hand out literature citing Ayers' past terrorist activity against the United States.Ayers is now a distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. According to his online biography, he has "written extensively about social justice, democracy and education, the political and cultural contexts of schooling, and the meaning-making and ethical purposes of students and families and teachers."Federal charges against him for conspiracy to bomb police stations and government buildings were dropped in 1974-because of prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance, the New York Times reported.As in the days of Noah....
