Invitation to Ayers likely to cost UNL

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10462190

Published Friday October 17, 2008
Invitation to Ayers likely to cost UNL
BY HENRY J. CORDES AND KHRISTOPHER BROOKS
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITERS


It appears a speaking invitation to a 1960s radical-turned-educator could prove costly to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln — either in terms of its academic reputation or donor dollars.

The Gilbert Hitchcock Foundation in Omaha informed the university today that it will halt all future contributions to the university unless the UNL education faculty un-invites William Ayers from his Nov. 15 speaking engagement on campus.

While other donors he's talked to haven't been so explicit, Clarence Castner, who leads the University of Nebraska Foundation, said it's become clear that other future contributions "are in jeopardy."


Just 11 days after next month’s election, the University of Illinois-Chicago professor, William Ayers, is scheduled to speak at a student research conference held by the UNL College of Education and Human Science.


At the same time, a decision to pull an invitation to Ayers, who has a national reputation as an expert in education reform, would be seen as a snub and school-sponsored curb on academic freedom by educators nationally.

It would make UNL a less attractive school to the faculty members it seeks to recruit, said David Moshman, a UNL education professor writing a book on academic freedom.

"In my opinion, it's best that the university just go ahead and keep him," he said.

Such was the situation less than a day after Thursday's announcement that Ayers, who has become a controversial figure in this year's presidential election, had been invited to speak at a student research conference. The university's announcement came hours after the educator whom many still consider a domestic terrorist became an issue in the final presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain.

UNL officials said a campus committee extended an invitation to Ayers in February, long before his advocacy of violent Vietnam War protests and his ties decades later to Obama became an issue in the Democrat's battle against McCain.


FULL story at link.

[amdezurik]

1. all is not well in that 'foundation"

"In some cases, the new scrutiny has provoked heated controversy, as in Omaha, where Denman Kountze, president of the Hitchcock Foundation, contends that grants it made represent conflicts of interest and self-dealing by his nephew, who is a trustee and a foundation manager.

The nephew and his allies accuse Mr. Kountze and his sons, Edward and Charles, who are also trustees, of violating foundation bylaws by trying to take various actions without a board vote. "

so it could be simply one nut-job doing that threat.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DEEDD1F31F93AA35752C0A9629C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all