Students For Academic Freedom

Freedom Group Objects to University Endorsement of Former Terrorist · 02 April 2008

GRAND FORKS, North Dakota—University of North Dakota conservative students are outraged over the University’s endorsement of speaker Bill Ayers, who will visit the campus April 3. Ayers, invited to campus by Students for a Democratic Society, is a former member of Weather Underground, the domestic terrorist organization responsible for the bombings of several government buildings in the 1960s and 70s and the murder of two police officers.

UND Young Americans for Freedom, along with the College Republicans, published an open letter to University of North Dakota President Charles E. Kupchella. The students objected to “this reprehensible man (Ayers)…being invited to the University…[and] having state institutions endorse terrorists.”

President of Young Americans for Freedom, Harald Brevik said, “I was shocked to see a flier with two University departments welcoming Ayers to our school.” In the letter, the students asked the President to “remove the University’s support for Ayers’ visit. . . [and to] do what is right; stand up and speak out against the visit of a terrorist.”

In an email to Brevik, University of North Dakota President Kupchella answered the students’ plea, stating, “I will acknowledge that. . . we have, in effect, ‘endorsed’ the invitation. I do not see how anyone could logically conclude that the University has therefore endorsed the things a speaker is alleged to have done some 40 years ago.”

President of Young Americans for Freedom, Harald Brevik argues that, “[Ayers] himself has said he regrets that they did not set enough bombs. Even now, he refuses to apologize for his terrorist acts against the United States.” The Young Americans for Freedom at UND was organized through the Campus Leadership Program at the Leadership Institute.

Left-wing student group Students for a Democratic Society is organizing Ayers’ visit in cooperation with the University of North Dakota’s 125th Anniversary celebration. The University’s Department of Educational Foundations and Research and the College of Education and Human Development are promoting the event.

Today, April 1, the group will preface Ayers’ speech by showing the 2002 documentary The Weather Underground.

Members of Young Americans for Freedom plan to post fliers featuring Ayers’ 1960s mug shot; on April 3, Brevik hopes to counter the speech by handing out literature citing Ayers’ past terrorist activity against the United States.

The Leadership Institute’s Campus Leadership Program helps conservative students start newspapers and organizations on college campuses. In the current 2007-08 school year, 70 Leadership Institute field representatives increased the number of active and cooperating conservative student groups and publications to 1,018, with organizations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. These groups fight extreme leftists on their campuses.

Students who would like to start a conservative group or a campus newspaper should visit www.campusleadership.org. Additional information on the Leadership Institute is available at www.leadershipinstitute.org. To schedule an interview with Morton Blackwell, contact Ian Ivey at 703-247-2000.

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