Correction — The institution where William Ayers, who will speak at Millersville University next month, teaches was misidentified in the article below, posted on LancasterOnline Wednesday. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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The announcement that William Ayers will speak at Millersville University has inspired a heated response from people both for and against his speaking there, a college official said.

On March 19, Ayers, the University of Chicago professor and former 1960s radical who found himself at storm center during the 2008 presidential campaign, will give the college's annual Anna Funk Lockey Education Lecture, discussing his work in urban education.

"He was chosen because of his work in urban education. That's the bottom line," Janet Kacskos, Millersville's director of communications, said. "The college is revamping its urban education program, and his work in Chicago fit very nicely with where we want our program to go."

Calls and e-mails for and against Ayers' appearance are about evenly divided, Kacskos said.

Ayers, a distinguished professor of education and senior university scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was invited last February by Millersville's Academic Cultural Enrichment Committee, long before he was thrust into the public spotlight during the 2008 presidential race. He was selected for his 20 years of work in the field of urban education.

Ayers worked with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley to shape the city's school reform program and was one of three co-authors of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge grant proposal, which netted $49.2 million over five years for public school reform.

In 1997 Chicago awarded him its Citizen of the Year award for his work. Since 1999 he has served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a philanthropic anti-poverty foundation.

Still, to many Americans, Ayers' background is more sinister than distinguished.

To protest the Vietnam War, the Weather Underground, of which Ayers was a member, set off bombs at government buildings, although he has always denied injuring anyone. Federal charges were filed against him but were dropped in 1973.

During the harsh presidential race of 2008, Sen. John McCain's campaign highlighted Ayers' involvement with the group, dubbing him a "domestic terrorist" and linking him to then-Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

Obama served on The Chicago Annenberg Challenge board of directors and was introduced to Ayers in 1995 by then-Illinois state Sen. Alice J. Parmer as her successor for the 1996 Democratic primary.

The McCain campaign's guilt-by-association ploy failed to keep Obama from the White House, but it did resurrect Ayers' radical past.

In January, Ayers was to take part in a series of lectures in Toronto, but was denied entrance to Canada by airport security. More recently, a March 2 appearance at Georgia Southern University was canceled. The school cited the cost of increased security.

In his home state, Republican state Sen. Larry Bomke wants the 64-year-old Ayers fired from his teaching position, a push Ayers calls "frivolous," saying lawmakers have more important things to do than to go after him.

At Millersville, the negative comments call Ayers "that terrorist" or "an unrepentant terrorist," and one person wrote that they "totally understand Ayers' right to free speech" but do not believe Millersville "should extend an invitation for him to speak on campus."

Several people felt the school is paying for his visit with taxpayer dollars.

"The lecture is paid for with private endowment money," Kacskos said. "No taxpayer money is being used."

A tirade against Ayers last week by Philadelphia talk-radio host Dom Giordano led to several angry calls to the college — all, Kacskos said, "from outside the 717 area code."

Among the positive responses, Kacskos said, is a man who said he was concerned that resistance to Ayers might cause the college to change its mind.

"This person believes in free press and free speech, and he is worried that we'll be intimidated into silence," she said.

One graduate, she said, congratulated the school for being "a marketplace for all ideas and people of all stripes, a place where free speech is encouraged."

Another "heatedly supports" Ayers' appearance and condemned "narrow-minded and evil people who are trying to ruin his life." Should the opposition block Ayers' talk, the writer said, "who knows what will be next?"

The lecture will be held at 7 p.m. in the Lehr room. It is free and open to the public, but tickets will be required. They will be available at the end of February and can be obtained by calling the Student Memorial Center at 872-3811.

E-mail: lalexander@lnpnews.com