Outpouring of academic support for Bill Ayers — 3,200-plus sign petition for 1960s terrorist linked to Barack Obama

Thousands of academics have signed an online petition in support of Bill Ayers, the 1960s-radical-turned-college professor whose ties to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama were a matter of hot dispute in Wednesday night's debate.

The petition, which has circulated through university faculties across the nation, says critics of Ayers, an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, are trying to "intimidate free thinking and stifle critical dialogue."

More than 3,200 have signed the petition.

The petition represents a rare attempt to defend Ayers, whose name has become a political epithet. Republicans have called him a "domestic terrorist," and presidential candidate John McCain said Wednesday night that Obama's dealings with him raise questions of character.

Obama, for his part, has downplayed his connections with Ayers and disavowed Ayers' violent acts. But Ayers, his supporters say, has dimensions that are being ignored amid the election-year tumult.

Ayers "built an extraordinary life," said Lawrence Grossberg, a University of North Carolina Chapel Hill communications studies professor who signed the petition. "He has become one of the leading scholars in the field of education. (People are) excoriating him for things he did 40 years ago and misrepresenting what he has done since, in order to make someone else suffer. That doesn't seem very American to me."

But George Leef, director of research for the John William Pope Foundation for Education Policy, a conservative Raleigh, N.C., think tank, said the petition's signers are conveniently ignoring key facts. Ayers was never charged with killing anyone, but people were killed by bombs linked to his organization.

A 1970 pipe bomb in San Francisco attributed to the group killed a police officer and hurt another, and an accidental 1970 explosion in a Greenwich Village basement killed three radicals. In 1981, two police officers and a security guard were killed in the robbery of an armored truck in New York that involved two Weather Underground members.

"There is a lot of selective indignation in America, and the academic world is as prone to that as anyone else," Leef said. "If Ayers at one point had expressed a favorable opinion of the Ku Klux Klan, I don't think he would have ever lived that down."

In the late 1960s, Ayers helped form the Weather Underground, a group that launched a series of bombings targeting U.S. landmarks. Ayers was charged in 1970 with inciting to riot and conspiracy to bomb public buildings, but the charges were dropped because of prosecutorial misconduct. He has since redefined himself -- in some circles -- as an education scholar, the author or editor of about 15 books. He advocates for school reform and helped win nearly $50 million in grants for Chicago schools.

Ayers and Obama live near each other in Chicago and worked with a charity and foundation board together. In addition, Ayers once hosted a political meeting for Obama in the mid-1990s as Obama prepared to run for the state Senate in Illinois.

At Wednesday night's debate, McCain said the scope of Ayers' ties to Obama have not been fully explored. "We need to know the full extent of that relationship," he said.

Obama said that Ayers "engaged in despicable acts. ... I have roundly denounced those acts." He said Ayers has had no involvement in his campaign and would have no role in an Obama administration.

Duke law professor Michael Tigar has known the couple for many years and respects their academic work. Tigar, who also signed the petition, criticized attempts to link Obama with Ayers' past indiscretions.

The petition's origin isn't clear. It is signed only "Friends and supporters of Bill Ayers," and it doesn't address the most destructive acts committed by Ayers and his group, such as bombs set off at the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon.

It reads in part, "The current characterizations of Professor Ayers -- 'unrepentant terrorist,' 'lunatic leftist' -- are unrecognizable to those who know or work with him. It's true that Professor Ayers participated passionately in the civil rights and antiwar movements of the 1960s, as did hundreds of thousands of Americans.

"His participation in political activity 40 years ago is history; what is most relevant now is his continued engagement in progressive causes, and his exemplary contribution -- including publishing 16 books -- to the field of education. The current attacks appear as part of a pattern of 'exposes' and assaults designed to intimidate free thinking and stifle critical dialogue."