At least two University of Nebraska regents were ready to step in to try to cancel William Ayers’ speech at UNL if campus administration didn’t do so.

And they were willing to act despite clear recommendations against such intervention from NU’s president and regents chairman.

NU e-mails reviewed by the Journal Star show Regents Howard Hawks of Omaha and Bob Phares of North Platte made multiple calls for the board to consider disinviting Ayers from UNL’s College of Education and Human Sciences Nov. 15 student research conference.

Ayers is a 1960s and ’70s radical who’s now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

On Oct. 16, the day UNL announced the Ayers speech, Regents Chairman Chuck Hassebrook of Lyons and other regents condemned Ayers’ past but also stressed they didn’t feel it would be appropriate for board members to act as censors.

The principles of academic freedom, Hassebrook and others say, call for faculty to be able to choose campus speakers without interference from administrators or elected officials.

And NU President J.B. Milliken said he told regents when he alerted them to the Ayers invitation on Oct. 10 that he, too, felt board intervention would be inappropriate.

Hawks and Phares were undeterred.

“I request some special process; either an emergency meeting of the Board of Regents or an executive decision by our Chairman and/or the President to withdraw the invitation to Mr. Ayers,” Hawks wrote in an Oct. 17 e-mail, sent at 9:21 a.m. to board members, Milliken and NU chancellors.

Phares responded less than half an hour later.

“The best possible solution here would be for the folks who extended the invitation to realize their celebration is now gone and the focus is now all about Bill Ayers and the invitation should, therefore, be withdrawn. If they are unwilling to do that then I think we should request the (UNL) Chancellor (Harvey Perlman) step in and if he is unwilling to do so then the last alternative is for our board to order it done.”

That afternoon, with criticism continuing to pour in from political leaders and the public, Hawks again e-mailed the board: “I request action on this expeditiously! … I don’t want this millstone hanging around the University’s neck for the next week or so.”

By that time, Ayers’ invitation already had been rescinded. But UNL waited to make that public because it wanted to first reach Ayers, who was in Taiwan.

Hawks didn’t return phone calls to his Omaha office over two days seeking comment for this story.

In an interview, Phares said he couldn’t recall Milliken saying on Oct. 10 that regents shouldn’t get involved.

And, he said, he wasn’t necessarily advocating for the board to cancel the Ayers speech — only that board members should consider meeting to share information and discuss options.

“I just felt that we had an angry outpouring and we had a situation here that I didn’t want to get out of hand,” he said. “If this means that the board comes together and discusses it, I wanted to let people know I was willing to participate in that. …

“When you get into these kinds of scenarios, you need to be careful that everybody’s communicating.”

Phares said no issue has prompted such a barrage of angry comments from constituents.

“My initial reaction was probably colored by the intensity and volume of responses,” he said.

He said he’s glad the board didn’t have to step in.

Perlman has said if Milliken or the board had ordered him to cancel the Ayers speech, he would have resigned.

Phares declined to comment on that statement, saying it was too speculative.

“We didn’t give him an order. Fortunately, it didn’t come to that point,” he said.

Calls from Hawks and Phares for regent intervention don’t reflect the board’s general position, Hassebrook said.

“There was by no means a general sentiment on the board that we needed to intervene,” he said.

He said he spoke with Hawks and Phares after the Ayers announcement to reiterate his position that regents can’t censor speech on campus.

And with security concerns over an Ayers appearance mounting, Hassebrook said, he encouraged his colleagues to hold off and wait for Perlman’s decision.

Regent intervention “would be, I think, very damaging to our ability to hire faculty,” Hassebrook said. “And the temptations on regents would be enormous if they got into the business of making these decisions (on approving campus speakers).”

“I just don’t think it would be good for a number of reasons.”

Milliken also talked with multiple board members on Oct. 16 and 17, repeating his belief that board intervention would be inappropriate.

He told that to Gov. Dave Heineman, too, when the governor issued a public plea on Oct. 17 for Milliken or Hassebrook to step in.

“There is no role for a governing board or a system president to overrule a campus or censor speech on campus,” Milliken said.

Reach Melissa Lee at 473-2682 or mlee@journalstar.com.