Boston College: Controversial Speaker Disinvited

Category: Free Speech
Schools: Boston College

Boston College not only banned former Weather Underground member William Ayers from campus but also refused to permit him to speak on campus via satellite to an audience limited to members of the BC community, citing “security issues.” Administrators have not replied to any of FIRE’s letters, asking them to reaffirm their commitment to free speech.

  • Free speech silenced

    April 16, 2009

    The Founding Fathers thought it was so important that they made it No. 1. The former slave Frederick Douglass told a Boston crowd that liberty was meaningless without it. Public Enemy rapped about it in “Fight the Power.” Across the centuries, freedom of speech has been held up as a freedom worth fighting for. It is enshrined in the First Amendment. How regrettable that it seems so little valued at the Massachusetts institutions where it should be most respected – our universities. In late March, Boston College cancelled the appearance of University of Illinois professor William Ayers, a former member […]

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  • At Boston College, April Fool’s Flyer Prompts Censorship, Punishment

    April 4, 2008

    Echoing the circumstances of FIRE’s ongoing case at Colorado College, Boston College student newspaper The Heights reported yesterday that six students responsible for posting satirical flyers around campus are facing discipline for the flyers’ “inflammatory” content. While the group posted several different flyers, one in particular provoked the College’s strong response. Posing as an advertisement for a “Black Baby Petting Zoo,” the flyer mocked white students who travel on “service trips” abroad to volunteer during spring break. Instead of traveling, the flyer purported to offer students a chance to “satisfy your need to cleanse your whiteness” while remaining on campus. […]

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