Attendance restricted at Ayers talk

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., Sept. 22 (UPI) -- Purdue University officials say they are issuing fewer than 100 tickets for a talk by Bill Ayers, a Chicago academic whose radical past made him controversial.

Ayers is scheduled to speak Thursday on inequality and education. Purdue officials said Monday Ayers and organizers of the lecture requested that seating be limited and that no one be permitted to photograph or tape record the event, the (Lafayette, Ind.) Journal and Courier reported Tuesday.

"We are doing that to prevent people from using what (Ayers) says for reasons other than educational purposes," said Chris Sigurdson, assistant vice president of external relations.

Protesters plan to demonstrate against Ayers, a co-founder of the radical Weather Underground in the 1970s, and against the school for inviting him to speak. Katie Ryan, the head of the Purdue College Republicans, told the newspaper she found it ironic that the university's sociology department had invited Ayers to speak "based on his merits on the topic of education."

"One would think that they would try and expound his 'supreme knowledge' on as large of a crowd as possible," she said.

During the 2008 presidential election, opponents of Democratic nominee Barack Obama cited his association with Ayers. Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin frequently accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists."