Hillary Clinton and Bill Lann Lee (Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights) were campus radicals while attending Yale University and 'shut down Yale University with demonstrations.'

See the story here.

The email makes a number of claims, some of which are based on actual events.

The email closely resembles part of an article by John McCaslin's 'Inside the Beltway' column that appeared in the June 12, 1998 issue of the Washington Times. The email addes a heaping portion of accusations over and above McCaslin's column.

The Urban Legend Zeitgeist will try to sort out this tangled skein of innuendo and accusation.

Alex Rackley was tortured and murdered by fellow Black Panthers in 1969 in New Haven, Connecticut. Rackley was suspected of being a police informant largely on the accusations of George Sams. Sams was a police informant but Rackley was not. The murder of Rackley may have been an attempt by Sams to divert suspicion away from himself. Rackley was interrogated and tortured for a week before being murdered.

Black Panther Party founder Bobby Seale was visiting New Haven at the time of the murder. Seale and thirteen other Black Panthers were arrested.

The trial of the Black Panthers became famous as the trial of the 'New Haven Nine.' Coming on the heels of the trial of the 'Chicago Seven,' in which Seale was also a defendant, for fomenting riots at the 1968 Democratic Party Convention in Chicago, some saw the trial as a concerted attempt to suppress political dissent in the US.

George Sams, Warren Kimbro and Lonnie McLucas were all convicted on various charges for the murder of Alex Rackley.

Bobby Seale and Erika Huggins were eventually acquitted by a hung jury. The jury voted 11 to 1 for Seale's acquittal and 10 to 2 for Huggin's acquittal.

What of Hillary Rodham and Bill Lann Lee? According to David Brock's unflattering biography, Hillary Rodham organized shifts of law students to monitor the trial of Seale and Huggins.

Bill Lann Lee was an undergraduate student at Yale and played no prominent role in the campus protests.

Did Bill Lann Lee and Hillary Rodham 'shut down' Yale with protests? No, sympathy for the Black Panthers was widespread on campus, both among the faculty and students. Yale President Kingman Brewster stated that he thought that the Black Panthers were unable to get a fair trial in the US. Yale University made concessions to the protestors and the demonstrations were largely peaceful, unlike the protests at Kent State University a few days later.

Perhaps at this late date it is difficult to imagine the deep social and political divisions in the US in the late Sixties and early Seventies. The Black Panther Party was, and still is, one of the most controversial phenomena of that time. But the linkage between Hillary Rodham Clinton to the New Haven Nine is at best tenuous. In Bill Lann Lee's case it is nonexistant.

It is hard to fault Hillary Rodham's efforts to monitor the trial. After all, the right to a fair trial is one of the fundamentals of the rule of law.

No contemporary account of the Yale protests names Hillary Rodham as one of the protest ringleaders. Nor is there any evidence that Hillary Rodham espoused the Black Panther Party's political agenda then or since. To tar Hillary Rodham Clinton with the political passions of almost thirty years ago is unfair.

What of Warren Kimbro, Erika Huggins and Bobby Seale? Warren Kimbro served his sentence and was released according to legal procedure. He can hardly be faulted for getting an education and pursuing a career. The email argues that any future success or actions must be held liable to some kind of judgement of past political acts. This is hard to square with a democratic society.

Who wrote this screed? It obviously borrows heavily from McCaslin's column. Commentator Neal Boortz (see Nealz Nuze) claims authorship but the Urban Legend Zeitgeist has been unable to verify this.

• "Students walk out as campus erupts in protest of Seale case and Vietnam War" from the Yale Daily News Online
• "COINTELPRO"
• "Black Panthers" from the Urban Legends Reference Pages

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