Remember William Ayers?

He's the radical militant/university professor who made some trouble for then-candidate Barack Obama when the future president was campaigning. The pair had some ties, and Ayers' controversial past made for a storm of media coverage.

Now, Ayers is retiring after a long career as an education professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Ayers was the topic of much discussion two summers ago on local university campuses, where some faculty members signed an online petition supporting the former founder of the Weather Underground, a radical group formed in 1969 that launched a series of bombings at federal buildings and landmarks.

Bill Ayers, the domestic terrorist-turned university professor whose ties to Barack Obama were under scrutiny over the last month or so, has broken his silence.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Ayers scoffed at the notion that he and Obama, now the nation's president-elect, are chummy. As Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin put it, Obama was "palling around with terrorists."

"Pal around together? What does that mean? Share a milkshake with two straws?," he said in the Post. " I think my relationship with Obama was probably like thousands of others in Chicago. And like millions and millions of others, I wish I knew him better."

Ayers is now an education professor in Chicago whose scholarly work has been lauded. As criticism mounted, he won some support among academicians.  

In South Carolina, a lawmaker is angry that a public university there spent money to bring Bill Ayers, the domestic terrorist-turned-university-professor, to campus to speak.

State Sen. Chip Campsen, a Republican from Charleston, wants to take more than $6,000 away from the University of South Carolina and use it to teach the U.S. Constitution.

Said Campsen:

"I believe it's very important we do something about this and send a message to USC that we don't want terrorists who have bombed the state capitol, bombed the New York Police Department, bombed the Pentagon to educate future teachers and students about education philosophy in this state."

Ayers is the 1960s radical whose ties to Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama have been under scrutiny. The News & Observer wrote last week about an online petition through which professors across the country have expressed support for Ayers and his scholarly work. 

Also, an Ayers appearance at the University of Nebraska has been cancelled over security concerns. 

Bill Ayers, the controversial radical militant-turned-university professor whose ties to Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama are under scrutiny, is getting some support from the American professoriate.

An online petition in support of Ayers has more than 3,200 signatures from faculty members across the country. More than a dozen signatories are from local universities here in the Triangle.

One is Lawrence Grossberg, a communications studies professor at UNC Chapel Hill. He said he signed the petition because he believers Ayers should not be demonized for his actions 40 years ago, and he respects the work Ayers does now as an education professor at the University of Illinois-Chicago. Ayers is a school reform advocate who has edited or written 15 books.