Former Terrorist Denied Permission to Travel for UMass Talk

Date: 11/17/2009 9:48 am

After much back and forth, former leader of the United Freedom Front Ray Luc Levasseur was finally barred from giving a scheduled talk at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst when he was denied permission to travel by the U.S. Parole Board. The talk, scheduled for Nov. 12, was to be part of W.E.B. Du Bois Library’s fifth annual Colloquium on Social Change.

The UFF, a former terrorist organization, carried out at least 20 bombings and nine bank robberies in the Northeastern United States in the 1970’s and 80’s. Levasseur is currently under parole in a halfway house in Maine.

The prospect of a talk by Levasseur has had the UMass community in an uproar. Levassuer’s talk was was initially canceled early last week after Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick pressured the university at the behest of the State Police Association of Massachusetts. Later that week, the talk was rescheduled after faculty and students protested on the grounds of academic freedom, but the Parole Board put a final hold on the visit.

“It’s truly unbelievable,” said Rick Brown, president of the State Police Association of Massachusetts after Gov. Patrick’s mandate was overturned. “If the governor told UMass not to bring this terrorist to a taxpayer-funded campus, it should not be happening.”

The event, titled “The Great Western Massachusetts Sedition Trial: Twenty Years Later,” continued without Levasseur. The auditorium that held the event was filled with protestors, camera crews, and students wanting to learn.

Attendants included a representative from the American Civil Liberties Union who was there to defend free speech, the wife of one of UFF’s victims, several protesting police officers with signs, the attorney of another former UFF member, and even the juror from one of UFF’s trials.

Bill Newman, director of the ACLU’s office in Western Massachusetts, remarked on the necessity of academic freedom.

“There have been great defeats, but also great victories for the first amendment and freedom of speech,” said Newman. “When censorship wins freedom of speech is shredded.”

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Issue: Free Speech and Academic Rights

Re: Former Terrorist Denied Permission to Travel for UMass Talk

Date: 10/4/2010 4:02 am

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Issue: Free Speech and Academic Rights