Columbia University ( University Hires Weather Underground Cop Killer - Terrorist Kathy Boudin )

Columbia University Hires Weather Underground Cop Killer

Posted on 2 April, 2013 by Amy

By LARRY CELONA and DAN MANGAN
Former Weather Underground radical Kathy Boudin — who spent 22 years in prison for an armored-car robbery that killed two cops and a Brinks guard — now holds a prestigious adjunct professorship at Columbia University’s School of Social Work, The Post has learned.
Boudin, 69, this year won another academic laurel — being named the Sheinberg Scholar-in-Residence at NYU Law School, where last month she gave a lecture on “the politics of parole and re-entry.”
Boudin’s bounce-back into respectability after her 2003 parole comes to light a week before the release of Robert Redford’s movie “The Company You Keep,” loosely based on the $1.6 million heist.
KATHY BOUDIN Teaches about ex-cons.
Boudin’s status of perp-turned-prof outraged the widow of one of her victims, Brinks guard and dad of three Peter Paige, who was gunned down by her accomplices from the Black Liberation Army on Oct. 20, 1981, in Rockland County.
Boudin acted as a getaway driver in the heist.
“She doesn’t deserve a job at all,” said Josephine Paige, 74, when told of Boudin’s posts. “She doesn’t deserve anything, nothing at all. I think she should be back in an institution.”
John Hanchar, the nephew of another victim of the robbery, Nyack Police Officer Edward O’Grady, said that while Boudin “has a right to do whatever she wants . . . I just hope the people that she’s lecturing are smart enough to question why [she felt] like killing people is an acceptable choice to forward their goals.”
“It’s easy to forget that violence is never the answer. Nine children grew up without their dads because of her actions,” said Hanchar, whose uncle O’Grady was shot with automatic weapons
Boudin did not respond to a request for comment.
She teaches about the issues facing convicts and their families when a person is released from prison.
Of the hundreds of students Boudin has taught, Yoshioka said, just three have expressed qualms about her criminal background, and only one “switched out” of a class because of those concerns.
One Friday, a criminal-justice conference at the school will feature keynote address by Angela Davis, another infamous radical, and later this month Boudin is scheduled to speak at Columbia Law School’s conference on child and family advocacy.
“I’m happy that she’s doing something positive with her life,” said Robert Van Cura, Rockland County’s undersheriff. But he said, “I believe there’s probably other people that are available to provide education beyond someone who is on parole for murder.”
Columbia School of Social Work Associate Dean Marianne Yoshioka, who hired Boudin for the adjunct-professor post in 2008, said she has been “an excellent teacher who gets incredible evaluations from her students each year.”