KPTM FOX 42: Omaha News, Sports and Weather; Nebraska News, Sports; kptm.com | Controversial Speaker Finally Getting Voice Heard in Nebraska
Member Center:
Todd Unger
Omaha (KPTM) - A little more than a year ago, UNL yanked an invite for controversial education figure Dr. Bill Ayers to speak at an education conference.
Saturday, though, the man who became embroiled in last year's presidential race will speak in Nebraska.
The Academic Freedom Coalition of Nebraska, or AFCON, says their annual meeting this weekend will address last year's predicament.
"We felt the main academic freedom issue of 2008 was the dis–invitation," says David Moshman, the group's public policy coordinator.
Close to 100 folks have pre–registered for the Saturday morning forum at The Holiday Inn at 72nd and Grover, according to organizers.
Ayers, a onetime radical who founded the group Weather Underground, is the keynote speaker.
The organization claimed responsibility for bombing several government buildings in the 1960's and 1970's.
Over the past couple of decades, Ayers has become a prominent urban education spokesperson, and has spoken at more than 70 universities about the topic.
He was invited to speak at UNL well before his relationship with then candidate Barack Obama became a focal point of last year's presidential race, but UNL officials eventually still canceled Ayers' speech because they claimed it posed too much of a threat.
"Whatever diminishment of academic freedom that occurred because of this cancellation seemed to be worth it so out kids had a safe environment," said Chancellor Harvey Perlman at the time.
The public isn't invited to Saturday's event unless they pre–registered.
Omaha police say they will step up their presence in the area, and have a contingency plan in place if any disturbances develop.
