The Student Union Senate voted 10-8 at last Sunday's Senate meeting to pass a Senate Money Resolution providing $900 of funding from the Senate discretionary fund for Bill Ayers and Robert H. King to speak at Brandeis March 30 and April 3, respectively. The debate over the resolution was contentious, with many of the Senators arguing that Lev Hirschhorn and Alex Melman, senators for the Class of 2011, who are members of Democracy for America, one of the resolution's sponsors, should refrain from voting. Hirschhorn and Melman ultimately voted in favor of the resolution.

Ayers is a founding member of the Weather Underground and is currently a professor of education at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He became a very controversial figure during the presidential election last fall when the Republican party tried to tie him to Pres. Barack Obama. King, a member of the Black Panther Party, spent 32 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of murder.

Hirschhorn said that DFA, Students for a Democratic Society, the History department and the Peace, Conflict and Coexistence program are co-sponsoring Ayers' and Kings' respective visits. Hirschhorn added that Ayers asked for $2,500 in speaking fees and King asked for $1,000.

The senators who voted against the resolution thought the funding was too excessive and that the event was too controversial for the Student Union to sponsor. "The Student Union should not be supporting the visit of someone like Bill Ayers, a domestic terrorist," Senator for the Class of 2010 Rebecca Wilkof, who voted against the resolution, said in an interview with the Justice.

She later said, "Regardless of my political beliefs, however, I do not think it is appropriate for the Senate to sponsor an event that is aimed at a fairly select group of people. The money in the Senate discretionary fund is for senators' projects, and this money resolution is clearly a club project."

Melman said in an interview that he felt the passage of the resolution showed the strength of the Senate. "It shows that the Student Union will commit itself to controversial events that will be educational, even if it will greatly anger some people."

Liza Behrendt '11, the campaign coordinator of DFA who is organizing Ayers' visit, said she came up with the idea to bring Ayers to campus when he was receiving extensive media attention during the presidential election in the fall. "Ayers has unique historical insight to share, and Democracy for America decided Ayers would be a really useful speaker to bring to Brandeis, especially in light of Brandeis' reputation for activism," she said

"People often involve themselves in activism but do not think about its basis. Bringing an extreme activist like Bill Ayers to campus causes us to question the limits of activism," she added.

Behrendt said last semester she contacted Liz Cole, Ayer's booking agent, who said that Ayers was going on tour and would be happy to speak at Brandeis if Behrendt raised the necessary funds. In an effort to raise the money in order to be able to bring Ayers to campus, Behrendt said she contacted multiple departments. She did not specify how many departments she contacted, but said that she received "a lot of negative responses" as a result of the potential controversy the event could generate. She would not provide the names of the departments that responded negatively.

Hirschhorn said that Justine Johnson, King's booking agent, contacted the Students for a Democratic Society listserv two weeks ago, saying that King was embarking on a book tour to promote his autobiography, From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of Black Panther Robert Hillary King.

Johnson explained that King would be in Boston and was looking for schools to visit. Hirschhorn, who is a member of the SDS listserv, remained in contact with Johnson and arranged to bring King to campus.

The History department and the Peace and Co-existence program are currently sponsoring these events.

Prof. Jane Kamensky, the chair of the History department, wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that the History department would provide $400. "Because the Weather Underground played a serious (if contentious and lamentable) role in our nation's history, this visit seemed to me to fall under History's mission," Kamensky wrote.

Prof. Gordon Fellman, the chair of the Peace, Conflict and Coexistence program, said that his program had not yet decided the exact amount of money to provide, but it would fall somewhere between $100 and $200.

"Ayers is a controversial figure, but something he did 40 years ago should not be a source of controversy today," Felman said in an interview with the Justice.

Besides the Senate's $900 contribution, Hirschhorn said that DFA was contributing $500 and SDS was contributing $1,500 and that the clubs had received $400 from the Brenda Meehan Social Justice-in-Action grants.