It's the eve of Yom Kippur, when many people of the Jewish faith reflect on their transgressions, atone for their misdeeds, and try to get right with God and their fellow men. Not Bill Ayers. His new book - which I confess I cannot bring myself to purchase - seeks instead to justify the heinous acts of his youth. (It's named "Fugitive Days" and if you don't care where your money goes you can obtain it from your local bookstore or Beacon Press.)
There are four things to know about Bill Ayers. The first is that he's an ex-Weatherman who boasts that he planned and participated in numerous acts of domestic violence during the late 1960's and early 1970's that left people dead and buildings badly damaged. Then he went "underground" for a decade to avoid being apprehended by the FBI. (His now-wife, Bernardine Dohrn, a notorious Weatherperson in her own right, was on the "most wanted list" for years.)
Second, he's now a "distinguished" professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, described by the University as specializing in moral education and the "ethical and political dimensions" of teaching.
Third, his new book, though published as a "memoir," contains fabrications, distortions, boasts and cover-ups. The 56-year old university professor says it should be read as "one boy's story."
Finally, and most importantly, he is completely unrepentant. ''I don't regret setting bombs,'' he told The New York Times. ''I feel we didn't do enough.''
I ask you, what does it say about this country's view of teachers and the proper preparation of those to whom we will entrust our children that a major state university confers so solemn a responsibility on such a person? One might understand it in a pragmatic sort of way if he were teaching physics or chemistry (you need those for bomb-making, right?) or maybe fiction-writing. But moral education? The ethical dimensions of teaching? What, pray tell, does Bill Ayers, unrepentant terrorist, know about morality or ethics?
Through an exceptionally unhappy coincidence, the Times' big feature on Ayers and his book appeared on Tuesday, September 11. Which meant people looked up from that morning's revelation that "He participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972" to see - well, to see modern Weathermen converting civilian planes into bombs and hurling them at New York and the Pentagon (and maybe taking aim at the Capitol as well).
About that time on the morning of the 11th, one imagines, Ayers strolled into his Chicago classroom to talk with tomorrow's 3rd grade teachers about morality and ethics. Or possibly to read them the passage from his book that says he still finds ''a certain eloquence to bombs, a poetry and a pattern from a safe distance.'' (One regrets that Ayers was too far from the World Trade Center to revel in that day's "poetry" and its awful consequences.)
His most notorious statement from those earlier "days of rage" was urging the young to "kill all the rich people [Ayers' father was C.E.O. of Chicago's main electric company and most assuredly one of 'the rich people'], break up their cars and apartments, bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's at." When, thirty years later, a reporter asked him if he meant it, Ayers waffled - and blamed the media. He told the Times interviewer that "Many things were said in a kind of a humor....They were taken literally mainly by the for-profit media to show how crazy we were."
Should a middle-aged adult be absolved of criminal behavior undertaken when he was in his mid-20's and hardly an innocent child? What about homicidal words uttered at the time? On the behavior side, we know that thousands of people are serving lifetime prison sentences for deaths they caused when relatively young. (Ayers was 27 when the Pentagon was hit the first time.) Our justice system generally regards adult responsibility as beginning at age 18 - when one can also join the military (which Ayers of course didn't) and vote. As for the angry words, in a land that celebrates free speech one can, of course, say practically anything without being held to account. But candidates for university posts generally have their writings (and sometimes their speeches) carefully scrutinized by faculty committees, deans and provosts. An elaborate dossier is ordinarily assembled and vetted before a professorial candidate is approved, particularly for a tenured post. (Mt. Holyoke College recently suspended Pulitzer-prize winning author-professor Joseph Ellis for lying about his past.) One wonders whether Ayers would have made it through the faculty screening process if he had voiced praise for the American role in Vietnam. One doubts that his present colleagues would have welcomed him if he had dropped bombs on an enemy of the United States. It seems, however, that there is no penalty for dropping them ON the United States. It certainly didn't interfere with this tenure decision!
What of redemption and forgiveness? Yom Kippur is a good day to reflect on such things. But it would seem that this process must begin with atonement. And that's what Bill Ayers has never done. Rather, he boasts of his youthful exploits - and praises those who do similar things today. (He terms the recent violent protests in Seattle and Genoa "signs of a wonderful activism.") We can only imagine what those third grade teachers emerge with from his classes. But we can reasonably doubt that anything they learn in the classroom of this unrepentant terrorist has much relationship to morality or ethics.
"No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen," by Dinitia Smith, The New York Times, September 11, 2001, (An abstract is free; the full text of the article must be purchased.)
"Forever Rad," interview with Hope Reeves, The New York Times Magazine, September 16, 2001, (Although an abstract is not available, the full text of the article may be purchased here.)
