Former militant, current education professor was last turned away in January
The Ottawa Citizen is reporting that William Ayers, the Chicago-based education professor who was denied entry into Canada last January, has been barred from coming to Ottawa to speak at a major academic conference.
He was set to speak today at a humanities and social sciences conference hosted by the Canadian Society for the Study of Education.
Although Ayers was a co-founder of the radical group Weather Underground in the 1960s, he has since made a name for himself in the field of education. He was set to prepare a lecture entitled “Bridges and Borders: Democratic Education in a Time of Crisis.”
The talk was expected to draw a crowd at the conference, which was expected to attract around 8,000 academics to Carleton University.
However, according to the Citizen, Ayers called conference organizers a few days ago and said he couldn’t get an entry visa.
A conference organizer says Ayers will still deliver his Monday lecture by video conference.
“We’re disappointed,” she said. “We were happy to have him come and speak. And so were our members.”
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