B.C. Cancels Bill Ayers Lecture

Boston College pulled the plug today on a planned lecture by former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers after the surrounding community, stirred up by a local radio DJ, barraged the school with complaints. The town of Brighton, where B.C.'s campus is located, is still stung by the four-decades-old shooting of one of its police officers, allegedly by members of the militant anti-war group who were robbing a local bank. Though the robbery's link to the Weather Underground remains in dispute, public pressure proved too strong for school officials. Ayers, who became a flashpoint of the presidential campaign for his association with Barack Obama, is an education professor at the University of Illinois. He called the cancellation "shameful."