According to an article from the Washington Post (excerpt below), a former member of a terrorist organization in the USA is now a tenured professor in Chicago at the University of Illinois. So his kind of free speech is acceptable, but speech about intelligent design is not?

Intelligent design is not a religious belief. It is a theory about how the universe and life came in to existence. Evolution is a theory. Why can't intelligent design be discussed alongside evolution when they both are theories? It was illegal to teach evolution until the Scopes trial. Now it is taught as fact even though it is anything but fact, particularly when it comes to its explanation (if any) of the origin of the first cell.

The public school argument doesn't hold water, particularly on college campuses that are both public and private where suppression of discussion about intelligent design is taking place because intelligent design is not creationism. In other words, it is not quoting from the Bible, it is a scientific theory, just like evolution.

"Former '60s Radical Is Now Considered Mainstream in Chicago

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 18, 2008; Page A04

CHICAGO, April 17 -- In the 1960s, Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn saw themselves as urban guerrillas who just might be able to overthrow the U.S. government and force an end to the Vietnam War. They were members of the Weather Underground, a radical offshoot of the antiwar movement, who went into hiding for a decade after a bomb accidentally exploded, killing three members of the group."

Here is another article about Ayers and his relationship with Obama.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections...

I think I have an interesting perspective to contribute.
I went to a private Lutheran school from preschool all the way through my senior year. I was active in church, taught Sunday school and coached sports. I graduated with a 3.3 cumulative GPA, I only mention that to validate my point.
Science classes were taught through religion. Creationism was taught exclusively. I was told the earth is about 2,000 to 3,000 years old. All things began when God said “Let there be light.” From there everything developed.
As a result I went off to college thinking the world is about 2,500 years old and unable to mentally grasp any number any larger than that. I had heard of Darwin and knew, in a very vague, general sense, what he was about. His theories were mentioned in passing and if I recall correctly, we were equipped with bible verses to dispute his theories.
So, when I went to my first semester geology class, I was very ill prepared. Despite being educated in what I’ve since dubbed “selective-Lutheran science” I did not do well in that geology class. I didn’t know how to try to understand billions of years, or how a rock could morph into something another rock form. I got very upset and discouraged and refuse to send my future children to private schools, as a result of what I feel is not a rounded education.
I don’t think either origin should be exclusively taught, but I want my kids to be exposed to the evolution theory, so, perhaps when I’m at home teaching them about the creation theory, they can teach me about the evolution theory. I wish my teachers would have at least taught it to me so that I would be able to understand it. That way, I could feel equipped enough to talk about it and at least know what I was using bible verses to dispel. Now I just shy away from the conversations as I am not confident enough to get into a discussion about it. I have tried to do some research on my own and have found I literally can not get my brain to understand the fundamentals.
I think it will be my duty as a parent to have my children exposed to creation or “Intelligent Design” and let the schools teach about evolution, as I can not.

A bad science teacher? There were many across my 14 years of private education. I don't think you can blame a single teacher, as there were many - which makes me beilieve it's the system they choose to teach.

Choose another school? I was 4 years old to 18 years old, that was all I ever knew, I didn't know that I was missing out on some vital parts of science classes until I was in college. So, having learned that, as mentioned, I am making changes by saying I've learned from my parents and will not be sending my children to private schools, so I am going to "find another school." Furthermore, it was more than just the rocks, that was the one example I used. Again, I can't dispute evolution comments because I know very little about it- that is the point I was trying to make.

Being exposed to both is what really matters. It doesn't take a science teacher to explain creation. "And God said," they get it, it's a parental responsibility. Whereas, a complex science-based theory takes more training to have the capacity to explain it.

In the same way children are exposed to a variety of things such as reading and other languages when they are young to ensure their minds can grow and develop early, I wish the same could have been done in my "science" classes.