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Clinton pardons a terrorist, and now she’s teaching

Clinton pardons a terrorist, and now she’s teaching

At Hamilton College—an elite liberal arts institution in Clinton, N.Y.—you can take courses in Roman civilization, Shakespeare and the “Emergence of Modern Western Europe, 1500-1815.” All well and good. You can also take something called “Resistance Memoirs: Writing, Identity and Change.” That last course—a month-long, half-credit seminar—is scheduled to begin next month. Its teacher is Susan Rosenberg, formerly of the Weather Underground.

Remember the Weather Underground? Its self-described revolutionaries, mostly middle-class, dedicated themselves to supporting radical black causes and tearing apart American society in the 1970s and early 1980s. In 1970, they blew up a townhouse when a bomb detonated prematurely and killed a few of their troops. Kathy Boudin, Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and other high-profile members of the group spent the next decade or so running from the police and, some of them, continuing to pursue careers in criminal violence.

[Ms. Rosenberg] was finally apprehended in November 1984 while unloading a cache of weapons—including 740 pounds of explosives—at a storage facility in Cherry Hill, N.J.

…So why isn’t Susan Rosenberg still in prison? Because in January 2001, Bill Clinton commuted her sentence. The outcry at the time was loud and furious. And no wonder. Just as important: Why is Hamilton College opening its doors to her?

Joel Johannesen
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