William Ayers

William Ayers is a retired professor. He was recently denied emeritus status at the University of Illinois Chicago, where he taught for 23 years. The decision of whether to grant emeritus status is supposed to be based upon merit. Ayers denial was not based on merit, but instead was based on a personal grudge. Ayers was wrongly denied emeritus status.

Ayers, of course, is more than just a retired professor. He was a founding member of the Weather Underground, a radical group connected to numerous bombings in the 1970s. Ayers participated in bombings. He also dedicated a book to a list of people he referred to as political prisoners. Included on the list was Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy, the father of Christopher Kennedy, who is the Chair of the University of Illinois Trustees. Christopher Kennedy said that he could not confer emeritus status on "a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father."

Ayers was denied emeritus status because in a list included in a book he wrote 36 years ago, before he even became a professor, he listed the assassin of Robert Kennedy as a political prisoner. This is disgusting. Do two wrongs make a right? Is Kennedy's personal vendetta more important than a 23 year career? Is Kennedy's personal vendetta acceptable because he is a Kennedy? Is this punishment for what Ayers did with the Weather Underground? Is this a way to punish him despite the fact that charges were dropped due to illegal activity by the FBI?

This is a perfect example of abandoning process when it doesn't produce the desired results. It reminds me of the Bush administrations use of torture and military tribunals. It is shortsighted. Process is important. It creates predictability and fairness. It protects us all from the whims and vendettas of our neighbors. It should not be lightly abandoned, even for a terrorist.