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Heckler's veto at issue
Last month, the Ayers circus rolled into Laramie, Wyoming. After cancelled performances at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Millersville University, and Boston College, William Ayers, the Sixties-terrorist-turned-academic, was invited to speak at the University of Wyoming. The announcement led to the predictable barrage of irate calls from alumni and community members and the eventual cancelation of the speech because of "security concerns."
Normally, the story would have ended here. In this case however, a UW student re-invited Ayers and when the university said no, she and Ayers filed a lawsuit against the University of Wyoming in federal courts.
Now comes news that U.S. District Judge William Downes has rejected the university's invocation of security concerns to cancel the speech. In his verdict against the university, Judge Downes explained that threats of violence alone do not justify barring a controversial speaker from a campus.
In an op-ed on the Ayers controversy recently published in the Casper Star-Tribune, ACTA president Anne D. Neal had already noted:
No one has a right to address a university audience. Especially not someone like Professor Ayers, whose past behavior and involvement deserve our most profound condemnation. But once a university has made the decision to host a speaker, it is incumbent upon the administration to uphold the invitation and not cede to outside pressure. To disinvite the speaker on the grounds of "security concerns" is tantamount to a heckler's veto—and, yes, clearly an attack on academic freedom.
Posted by David Azerrad on April 28, 2010 at April 28, 2010 11:49 AM
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