Controversial UMass talk canceled, again

‘‘We see no way of preventing a speaking appearance, based on the free speech and free assembly rights we enjoy in this country,’’ UMass President Jack M. Wilson said in a statement.

But officials said they were happy with Wednesday's decision and criticized the professors, such as Sara Lennox, director of the school’s Social Thought and Political Economy program, which is sponsoring the event. Lennox could not be reached for comment.

‘‘We are pleased with this outcome,’’ UMass-Amherst’s chancellor, Robert C. Holub, said in a statement. ‘‘While the principle of academic freedom prevents us from barring such a speaker, no matter how repugnant his views, we call on the faculty and the campus community to find better-qualified, more appropriate speakers. We should never shy away from controversy, but we should also not seek it for its own sake.’’

Patrick spokesman Joe Landolfi added, ‘‘Governor Patrick made clear from the start that he opposed this appearance, out of concern for the families of the victims. He appreciates the decision of the United States Parole authorities to deny his travel to Massachusetts.’’

In the early 1970s, Levasseur co-founded the United Freedom Front, a radical group that claimed responsibility for a series of bank robberies and bombings, including the 1976 Suffolk County Courthouse blast that injured 22.

Despite Levasseur’s absence, the event will go on. Pat Levasseur, Ray’s former wife and a former Freedom Front member, will speak at Thursday night's forum on the couple’s 1989 federal sedition trial, billed as the longest and most expensive in state history, which ended in the Lavasseurs’ acquittal.

With the event still scheduled, so are the planned protests. The US Parole Commission could not confirm the new cancellation.

‘‘We are still on,’’ said Donna Lamonaco, widow of a New Jersey state trooper murdered in 1981 by a Freedom Front member. ‘‘It’s just the person that’s different, not the message.’’

Lamonaco said she has organized two busloads of New Jersey police officers to protest at the Amherst campus tonight. Her expected group of 60 will link up with 200 to 300 Massachusetts police officers there, said Arnie Larson, president of the state Fraternal Order of Police.

‘‘If his wife is going, then we’ll be out there,’’ Larson said.

UMass campus police, though forced to work the event, stood in solidarity with the opponents. The officers’ union announced that police working the event will donate their overtime pay to a memorial fund in honor of Lamonaco’s late husband.

Not everyone who suffered in the Freedom Front’s wake agrees with stifling Levasseur’s voice.

Edmund Narine, who lost a leg in the 1976 courthouse bombing, said despite a desire to protest a Levasseur appearance, free speech trumps his anger.

Levasseur ‘‘should be prosecuted again, and if I have to return and testify again, I would,’’ he said yesterday in a phone interview from Kampala, Uganda, where he is visiting family. ‘‘At the same time if he wants to talk about it, and I don’t know what he’s going to tell the kids, but I think he should be given the opportunity to speak.’’

Narine said the man who contributed to his years of agony can still teach the students.

‘‘I think the public can learn from someone who’s carried out these sorts of heinous acts,’’ said Narine, 72, who is a writer in Mission Hill. ‘‘It’s important for us to hear why they did it, what motivated them. It’s good for all of us to hear that, especially professionals, because it might help them to take preventive action in the future.’’

Levasseur said he was humbled by Narine’s support.

‘‘I think that’s a tremendous thing for him to do. And I appreciate it given what he’s been through,’’ said Levasseur, noting that he never intended to hurt innocent civilians.

Levasseur said he travels outside Maine to visit his grandchildren in New York, but knew this request would be closely inspected.

Larson said local police forces put pressure on Levasseur’s parole officer and the commission to prevent his appearance.

‘‘We reached out to people in the Justice Department and educated them about our passion here and why this individual should be held to the rules of his probation and not be allowed to leave the State of Maine, and they followed through on it,’’ he said.

But Levasseur said the protesters’ actions are hypocritical.

‘‘We have a First Amendment. It protects them; it gives them the opportunity to express themselves in a peaceful way,’’ he said. ‘‘They just don’t want me to do it. It’s the voice that they want to silence.’’

His former wife, now a 60-year-old legal worker in Manhattan, was surprised at the extensive protests planned.

‘‘Everyone has a right to protest,’’ she said. ‘‘I think it’s ridiculous, I’m an old grandma. But if that’s what they want to do with their time, it’s a free world. That’s their life.’’