Listening is part of productive dialogue

We can certainly understand why parents and residents would be upset about a public school hosting remarks by Bill Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground domestic terrorist group that planted bombs in public buildings in the 1960s and 1970s.

After all, Ayers, a Glen Ellyn native, was a member of a group that committed terrorism decades ago. We certainly would not give any and all terrorists public platforms.

But with public involvement and careful balance beforehand, the Ayers talk could have been an educational opportunity and a model of the free speech we all need to hold dear.

Naperville Unit District 203 Superintendent Alan Leis probably thought he was doing the right thing. He was going to let Ayers speak to Naperville North High School students who were studying the Vietnam War and who had their parents' permission to attend. But public input and a balanced list of speakers from across that volatile Vietnam spectrum might have diffused the uproar.

Instead, sometimes lately, it seems everyone is shouting and no one is being heard.

Take the Notre Dame University drama. President Obama should speak at its graduation. He is our president, for goodness sakes. Notre Dame officials are to be praised for not caving after Cardinal Francis George and others condemned them for inviting a U.S. president to their campus who views stem cell research and abortion differently than Catholic doctrine dictates. We're certain Notre Dame's students - all adults - hear the Catholic view regularly.

As for Ayers, a University of Illinois at Chicago education professor, what his group did was domestic terrorism and we abhor it.

Still, what we must not let stand is a dangerous movement to let vocal minorities squelch speech from those with whom they disagree.

Ayers says his group broke the law, but that he never hurt anyone and has met his "judicial obligations." He also says he now condemns acts of terror and never advocated violence.

Believe it or don't, but hear it.

We all, in our communities, need to talk more, not less. We need to listen more, not less. We need to treat each other with civility and respect, especially when we disagree.

We defend the right of parents to speak in objection to Ayers' appearance just as we defend Ayers' right to speak even as we condemn the terrorist acts the Weather Underground committed.

If all of the speech around his appearance had occurred without what sound like threats; if it all had been conveyed with temperance, balance and fairness, well, that would have been a model from which all could have learned.

How do we expect to solve the grave challenges we all face together if we cannot stand to listen one another; to open our minds; to appreciate that others have different views and to respect and honor them just as much as we cherish our own?

We would call for this same calm and reasoned opportunity to hear another viewpoint no matter if the speaker were Ayers or another controversial speaker with a criminal past like Chuck Colson, the Watergate and Pentagon Papers' figure who served a prison term for obstruction of justice and who once advised former President Richard Nixon to firebomb a liberal think tank.

Consider the reflections of Joey Kalmin. Kalmin is a Highland Park high school junior who describes himself as a conservative Republican who backed John McCain. He recently attended a speech by Ayers and spoke with him afterward. Kalmin thinks another venue for Ayers might have been better, but he went and listened anyway.

"If I wanted to hear my own opinion," he said, "I could yell it in the mirror."

Out of the mouths of our young students shall come the leadership we all need.