Only a select group at Purdue University will be eligible to attend a Thursday night lecture about education reform by a controversial academic, the school announced Monday.

Purdue has put seating limits on a talk by Bill Ayers amid the promise of protests over the university’s invitation to the distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois-Chicago.

Fewer than 100 seats will be available for those wanting to attend Ayers’ lecture. But that isn’t stopping campus and community groups who say they still plan to demonstrate against a man who was a cofounder of the radical anti-war Weather Underground group in the 1970s.

“Ironically the department of sociology cites Mr. Ayers’ invitation being based on his merits on the topic of education,” said Purdue junior Katie Ryan, chairwoman of the campus College Republicans. “One would think that they would try and expound his ‘supreme knowledge’ on as large of a crowd as possible.”

Irwin Weiser, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts, said the talk is an academic lecture and was never intended for the general public.

“Because Ayers is speaking about education, we are giving priority to faculty in education, graduate students and those in the child development program,” he said.

Faculty, staff and students in the area Ayers’ work touches will receive invitations. That will include those in the fields of sociology, women’s studies, African-American studies, education and child development.

Any remaining seats will be offered to students in the areas of anthropology, philosophy, political science, communication, history, psychological sciences, foreign languages and literatures, and English.

Those attending will have their Purdue identification cards checked at the door.

The title of Ayers’ speech is “Inequality and Education: The Challenge for Urban Schools.” As the inaugural event of the Cummings-Perrucci Annual Lecture on Class, Race and Gender Equality, Ayers’ appearance has led the university to take unusual measures from its normal protocol.

Chris Sigurdson, assistant vice president of external relations, said no attendees — including media and faculty — will be allowed to take photos of Ayers during his discussion or make audio or video recordings of the talk.

“We are doing that to prevent people from using what (Ayers) says for reasons other than educational purposes,” Sigurdson said.

No overflow rooms for satellite viewing of Ayers’ talk will be made available for the same reason, he said.

The request was made by Ayers and talk organizers, according to a Purdue news release.

Ayers did not respond late last week and again Monday to requests for an interview.

Faculty members of Purdue’s department of sociology, which organized Ayers’ visit, have not commented on the talk. JoAnn Miller, interim head of the department, did not respond to repeated calls for comment.

Weiser said Ayers was asked to speak because of his noted research on urban educational reform.

“He is an expert,” Weiser said. “It has generated quite a bit of interest on campus for people who want to hear him.”

‘Open dialogue’

Campus and community groups have said they are planning to protest Ayers’ appearance on campus. They say they’ll target Purdue, too, for allowing him to speak.

“We are protesting both Mr. Ayers and the Purdue administration’s embarrassment of our great school’s tradition of class, integrity and character, a move taxpayers do not approve of,” Ryan said.

In the early-’70s, Ayers and other Weathermen opposed the war in Vietnam, sometimes by highly publicized bombings of public buildings. Evacuation notices were issued prior to the explosions, and no members of the public were harmed.

In 2008, Ayers became a focal point in Barack Obama’s presidential campaign because of Ayers’ radical past and his friendship with Obama.

Fliers saying Ayers is not welcome at Purdue have been posted in Lafayette and West Lafayette.

But not all students agree on protesting Ayers or those who brought him to campus.

Nick DeBoer, president of the campus chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the views of Ayers and any other controversial figure should be heard and judged.

“If our public university were to buckle from pressure from a potential backlash, it would be an affront to our First Amendment principles and our national commitment to free and open dialogue,” DeBoer said. “Whether one is offended by the views of others is inconsequential. We should embrace the right to be offended.”

Funding for the event comes from Purdue sociology professor Carolyn Cummings Perrucci and sociology professor emeritus Robert Perrucci. The lecture series bearing their names is funded through an endowment they started, according to Weiser.

Attempts to reach the Perruccis were not successful.