Poetic Injustice

Bernardine Dohrn, a former member of the infamous Weather Underground and one of the Justice Department's most-wanted, is now receiving grants from the same agency that once hunted her.

In 2010 and 2011, the Justice Department saw fit to give $400,000 in grants to an organization that lists Dohrn as a member of its board of directors: a $150,000 grant in September of 2010 and a $250,000 grant a year later.

The organization that received the grants is the W. Haywood Burns Institute, and the project that brought in the money is the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative. JDAI aims to keep juvenile criminals out of "secure confinement" and to reduce racial disparities in the juvenile justice system.

As a prominent figure in the Weather Underground — which was initially known as simply "Weatherman" — Dohrn helped lead the "Days of Rage" Chicago riot, and during her tenure the group was responsible for numerous bombings of government buildings. Although Dohrn has never renounced her past, her various legal troubles are behind her: She served some probation, several charges were dismissed, and she spent some time in jail for refusing to cooperate with an investigation. She’s now a law professor at Northwestern University, and her husband, fellow Weather Underground co-founder William Ayers, is a retired English professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.