The Sophian

Issue date: 11/19/09 Section: News

As PVTA buses pulled into Haggis Mall last Thursday night, students murmured and pointed out the windows. The lawn on the UMass-Amherst campus was filled with multiple news vans, reporters, camera crews and over 100 protestors holding candles and signs with slogans like "UMass supports terrorism."

The cause of the dramatic protest was an on-again-off-again lecture originally organized by the university library system, titled "Ray Luc Levasseur: Defendant in the Landmark Sedition Trial of Western Massachusetts Returns after 20 Years." Ray Levasseur founded United Freedom Front, a radical group responsible for bombings and bank robberies in the '70s and '80s. He, his now ex-wife Pat Levasseur and Richard Williams stood trial in Springfield for seditious conspiracy, or plotting to overthrow the national government. The trial was the most expensive in Massachusetts history, and the defendants were acquitted of sedition charges in 1989.

The invitation for Levasseur to speak drew criticism from the governor, was cancelled by the school and then rescheduled by an independent group of faculty. Ray Levasseur was denied permission by a parole board to attend the rescheduled event.

Instead, Pat Levasseur spoke, along with defense attorneys and jurors. Along the way, the event attracted intense media attention and sparked controversy about the limits of free speech on the campus.

"There have been great defeats for the First Amendment but also great victories," said Bill Newman, head of the western Massachusetts ACLU chapter, addressing the audience at the panel Thursday night. The event was marked by a heavy police presence. Attendance was limited to the seating capacity of the room, and no listeners were allowed to stand in the back.

Sarah Lennox, director of UMass's social thought and political economy department, said in her opening remarks that she hoped the panel discussion would be respectful and informative.

"This event is a commitment to free speech," Lennox said.

Panel participants described their involvement in the landmark case and drew parallels between the trial and the current political climate.

"It was an important part of history, an important part of my life," Pat Levasseur said. She discussed her childhood in a household that disapproved of racism and her radicalization after events such as the assassination of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, Kent State protests and the Vietnam War.

Continued...

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