The U. Illinois Board of Trustees unanimously voted against granting professor emeritus status for retired Chicago campus Professor William “Bill” Ayers.

“My own history is not a secret,” said Board Chairman Chris Kennedy, the nephew of President John F. Kennedy. “In this case of emeritus status, I hope that I will act in a predictable fashion and that the people of Illinois and the faculty and staff of this great institution will understand my motives and my reasoning.”

Ayers, whose name might ring a bell to anyone who closely followed the 2008 presidential election, dedicated one of his literary works, “Prairie Fire,” to Sirhan Sirhan, the man who assassinated Trustee Kennedy’s father. Ayers was also involved with the organization “Weather Underground” that the FBI labeled as a domestic terrorist group.

“I intend to vote against conferring the honorific title of our University to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father, Robert F. Kennedy,” Kennedy said. “There can be no place in a democracy to celebrate political assassinations or to honor those who do so.”

Kennedy ended his remarks by asking anyone who questions his judgment: “How could I do anything else?”