Yet another chance to sound off on Ayers non-visit

The scheduled visit of former/possible/unrepentent terrorist Bill Ayers to Naperville North High School and Anderson's Bookshops hit on the eve of the local elections.

When we broke the news of his impending arrival, there was a huge hue and cry. And a pretty good influx of letters to the editor, many of them decrying the notion of the former Weatherman-cum-college professor speaking in our public schools.

But, as you'll recall, the situation changed before our very eyes. A few days after the visit was planned, it was canceled by Naperville Unit District 203 Superintendent Alan Leis, citing hundreds of e mails of complaint and the fact that the visit had stirred up so much emotion, Ayers' presence would be more of a sideshow than a part of the learning process. Anderson's followed suit, but for different reasons, saying the hostile callers had employees fearing for their safety.

Naperville reporter Melissa Jenco did a nice follow-up story - an interview with the disinvited guest, who called the cancellation of his appearance "absurd" and an affront to free speech. That set off a new wave of letter-writing, but by then we were madly scrambling to get in all the letters on the April 7 election.

After the election dust settled, I still had a surfeit of Ayers letters, but now the canning of his appearance was more than a week old, and we'd already editorialized on the topic. Seemed like the letters' timeliness had passed us by.

But our friends at Anderson's Bookstores, as you can see in Melissa's story today, have scheduled an event related to the Ayers fallout: "Freedom of Speech in Naperville?"

Ah, the non-visit is Page 1 news again. In celebration of that, we are running as many Ayers-related letters as we could fit on the page. You will see the majority of the writers have no problem with the cancellation and suggest the free speech argument is lame.

Judging from the question mark in the title of its forum, Anderson's does seem to think Naperville schools and bookstores were held hostage by a vocal minority. One of the store's owners, Becky Anderson, said she was upset to cancel the visit, but her employees were concerned about the ugliness of the calls and e mails from a "very vocal minority who expressed themselves very hysterically."

So, there you have it. Read the letters on this page, feel affirmed and be satisfied with the way things turned out. Or, perhaps attend the forum to see if everyone, as Anderson put it, "can have civil discourse on this and realize that freedom of speech not only in our country but in Naperville is very important. We're not asking people to change their minds, but maybe understand each other better."

I really hope some of the letter writers will attend the forum because I'm not sure this issue is quite as black and white as people, on either side, seem to think. On the heels of the Ayers cancellation, my boss got a note from someone with quite the different view from most of our letter writers. It read in part:

"I have been disturbed to see lately what appears to be the adoption of a posture of mealy-mouthed cowing before the extreme right-wing on the part of The Daily Herald editorial staff. If that is unfair, here is the chance to show it. This latest affront to free-speech by an agency of government, as well as, of all things, a prominent and once-respected bookstore, is a disgrace. It is caving to mob pressure, pure and simple. If The Daily Herald does not say so in the strongest possible words of condemnation, including direct condemnation of the action of the superintendent by name, it does not deserve to be considered a newspaper."

To which I replied to the boss, "Everything's so black and white - on BOTH sides of the issue. The other side wants Alan Leis' scalp for even considering this."

To which the boss replied, "Amen."

jdavis@dailyherald.com