“People have regrets over their lifetime, but I understand who I was,” said Pat Levasseur, a defendant in the 1989 trial, to a swarm of reporters in an impromptu press conference while protestors, supporters, students and faculty waited outside the Isenberg School of Management auditorium.

The University initially requested Raymond Luc Levasseur to speak at the UMass W.E.B. Dubois Library’s 5th Annual Colloquium for Social Change about the sedition trial, where he, ex-wife Pat Levasseur, and associate Richard Williams were tried and acquitted of charges of seditious conspiracy, violation of the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (substantive RICO), and racketeering conspiracy.

Raymond Luc Levasseur is the founder of the United Freedom Front (UFF), and was sentenced to 45 years in prison for his connection with a series of bombings on government and military facilities between 1976 and 1979 in protest of U.S. backing of Central American death squads and the South African Apartheid government. After 20 years, Levasseur was paroled in 2004 from Florence, Colorado federal penitentiary, ADX, also called the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.”

After the university invited Levasseur to speak, a number of people (including Donna Lamonaco, widow of a New Jersey police officer killed by the UFF) protested Levasseur’s trip to UMass and the invitation was revoked. After this decision, the University came under fire again as many wrote letters complaining that it was unfair to bar Levasseur from speaking. Faculty of the University as well as student groups on campus asked for Levasseur to speak at the University, but he was ultimately denied the right to travel to Massachusetts by his parole board.

Instead, a panel of defense lawyers and jurors from the 1989 trial along with Pat Levasseur reunited in front of a packed auditorium in the Isenberg School of Management. Donna Lamonaco was invited to speak, but declined.

“When censorship prevails we all lose…The principals on which America stands are shredded to some degree and that’s happened here to some degree,” said director of Western Massachusetts’ ACLU office, Bill Newman, who gave introductory remarks. “On the other hand, the attempt to censor Ray Levasseur has failed and you are the proof of that. The newspaper and media coverage, the radio and television coverage has multiplied 100 times because of the attempts at censorship, and I think that speaks to principals for which I hope most people stand, which is in a country of freedom free speech matters! Opinions matter! Debate matters! What we say to each other matters! History matters! Our view of the world and our sharing it with each other, that all matters!”

Pat Levasseur’s world view was very much shaped by her parents’ opposition against racism in the 50’s and the Vietnam War in the 60’s.
“We grew up in a unique family given where we lived and that meant that from the time that I was a little kid in school I was different…I believed in peace and that we were all the same on the inside,” said Levasseur in a soft spoken voice.

Levasseur described her family as “very patriotic,” with a father in the army, a brother who served in World War II and a brother who died from exposure to Agent Orange after serving in the Vietnam War.
“But part of being patriotic is believing in the Constitution and I remember being bored one summer day and my mother said, ‘Go to the library and start reading,’ and it was a really teeny tiny library…but there were some good books there and I did get turned on reading things,” said Levasseur. “I learned about the rights of man. I really believed in change.”

When she was 17, Levasseur went to California to protest against the Vietnam War. She was hit by a car there, and when she woke up in the hospital Levasseur learned that Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. Two months later, Bobby Kennedy was killed, and upon her return east, the Kent State massacre occurred. “All of these things I felt very deeply, and they motivated me, and I knew that whatever I did, I wasn’t going to sit here and type bills in this medical office anymore.”

Levasseur met Raymond Luc Levasseur in the Statewide Correctional Alliance for Reform (SCAR), an organization opposing the use of prisons as places to “control people and provide jobs so there would be a steady group of disenfranchised colored and poor people,” said Levasseur. “They radicalized me.”

Ray Levasseur, Pat Levasseur, and the other five associates accused of attempting to overthrow the U.S. government were arrested and originally prosecuted by the head of the FBI at the time Robert S. Mullin. Aided by two tanks, helicopters and planes, the Hostage Rescue Squad and all 50 members of the FBI, Mullin had the Levasseur’s home surrounded, said defense lawyer Elizabeth Fink.

“And you know what he [Mullin] forgot? A search warrant,” said Fink “All he had to do was go to any judge and say, ‘Oh well I just found out where Ray Levsseur is. We’ve been looking for him for 10 years,’ and any judge—any judge would have given him a search warrant. But he didn’t think he needed one because he was the government, and the constitution didn’t exist for him. Just like the constitution didn’t exist for Cheney and [Jay] Bibby and [David] Addington. Because it’s the same issue here. It’s if you don’t put your government to the task, if you don’t make them follow the constitution then you get what we just got, which is eight years of our constitution being used as toilet paper and this is what happened in this case.”

Even though Levasseur himself could not attend the event, a number of protesters still gathered outside Isenberg School of Management in support of Massachusetts police officers and the fallen New Jersey officer. They stood in the dark, holding candles and signs reading “shame on UMass” and “UMass supports terrorism recruitment.”

One protester, representing the Massachusetts Police Association, Robert Frydryk explained why he and other protesters were present that night. “We support freedom of speech, we support the academic freedom, but we don’t support terrorists coming to campus… we think there are other ways to find out about the topic of terrorism without bringing terrorists to the campus.”

Protester Denise Baran said she didn’t see the value in having Levasseur speak. “I think it is appalling that UMass even thought to bring him here. What does he have to contribute?” she asked. Standing beside Baran, David Chamberlain added that he believed some things are worth discussing, but because of his criminal past, Levasseur forfeited his right to speak. “Some topics, it’s healthy to hear both sides, but this particular subject is not because he’s murdered people,” he said.

During a question and answer session following the panel presentation, Attorney Elizabeth Fink made a distinction between the crimes or which Ray Levasseur was tried and a terrorist attack.

“The definition of terrorism is politically motivated random acts of violence against a civilian population. The 11 bombings for which they were charged in Brooklyn in which they were convicted of some of them, none of them were against civilian populations and none of them resulted in any harm to anyone,” said Fink. “You can support these bombings, you can think they’re stupid, they’re wrong whatever. But in terms of what terrorism means, which is civilian random acts of violence, these were not acts of terrorism; they were acts of sabotage.”

For Attorney Fink, there is an important message to be taken from all of this.

“Violence doesn’t work. It doesn’t. People made a lot of mistakes about thinking it did, but it doesn’t,” says Fink. “I think that after being a lawyer for 35 years and representing people who have used violence I have to tell you, it doesn’t work, and that is the true story here.”

Kimya Hedayat-Zadeh contributed to this report