-Caveat Lector-
Begin forwarded message:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: September 13, 2007 11:13:10 PM PDT
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Purging "Liberals" from the Legal System under Nazi, er,
"Republican" Rule
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-
ucilaw13sep13,0,5893599.story?coll=la-home-center
UC Irvine reverses field on Chemerinsky
Myung J. Chun / LAT
FAME: Erwin Chemerinsky is one of the best-known experts on
constitutional law.
The constitutional scholar says university officials told him the
deal was off to head the new school because he was too ‘politically
controversial.’
By Garrett Therolf and Henry Weinstein, Los Angeles Times Staff
Writers
9:48 PM PDT, September 12, 2007
IRVINE, Calif. -- In a showdown over academic freedom, a prominent
legal scholar said Wednesday that the University of California,
Irvine's chancellor had succumbed to conservative political
pressure in rescinding his contract to head the university's new
law school, a charge the chancellor vehemently denied.
Erwin Chemerinsky, a well-known liberal expert on constitutional
law, said he had signed a contract Sept. 4, only to be told Tuesday
by Chancellor Michael V. Drake that he was voiding their deal
because Chemerinsky was too liberal and the university had
underestimated "conservatives out to get me."
Later Wednesday, however, Drake said there had been no outside
pressure and that he had decided to reject Chemerinsky, now of Duke
University and formerly of the University of Southern California,
because he felt the law professor's commentaries were "polarizing"
and would not serve the interests of California's first new public
law school in 40 years.
News of Drake's decision quickly came made its way through academic
and legal circles nationally where it came under criticism from
conservative as well as liberal scholars who said Chemerinsky was
being unfairly penalized.
"It seems late in the day to notice to Erwin Chemerinsky is a
prominent liberal," said John Jeffries, University of Virginia Law
School dean. "That's been true for as long as I've known him. It's
rather like discovering that Wilt Chamberlain was tall. How could
you not know?"
Drake said he worried that the controversy had the potential to
harm the university's reputation. "It was the most difficult
decision of my career," he said in an emotional interview, his
voice at times quivering.
Legal academics said Chemerinsky's sacking could make it difficult
for UCI to attract a top-flight dean, students and faculty.
Douglas Kmiec, a prominent conservative constitutional law
professor at Pepperdine Law School in Malibu, called the
development "a tremendous setback for UC Irvine. In my judgment it
is a profound mistake to have obtained the services of one of the
most respected, most talented teachers of the Constitution in the
United States and to turn him away on the specious ground that he
is too liberal or too progressive. That is a betrayal of everything
a law school should stand for."
Chemerinsky and Drake agreed the new dean's dismissal was motivated
in part by an August 16 opinion article in the Los Angeles Times,
in which Chemerinsky asserted that Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales was "about to adopt an unnecessary and mean-spirited
regulation that will make it harder for those on death row to have
their cases reviewed in federal court."
But Drake and Chemerinsky split sharply on what role the article
played in the decision to fire the incoming dean and whether
academic freedom was at stake.
"Shouldn't we as academics be able to stand up for people on death
row?" Chemerinsky said.
Drake said "we had talked to him in June about writing op-ed pieces
and that he would have to focus on things like legal education in
this new role, and then here comes another political piece. It
wasn't the subject, it was its existence. What he said doesn't
matter."
Chemerinsky, one of the nation's best known constitutional scholars
will remain a professor at Duke University in Durham, N.C. He said
he had lined up a board of advisers for the new school, including
the deans of the UC Berkeley and University of Virginia law schools
and three federal judges, including Andrew Guilford, a Bush
appointee from Orange County.
Chemerinsky said Drake told him during a meeting Tuesday at the
Sheraton Hotel near the Raleigh-Durham airport that "concerns" had
emerged from the University of California Regents, which would have
had to approve the appointment. The professor said Drake told him
that he thought there would have been a "bloody battle" over the
appointment.
Drake disagreed with the account. "No one said we can't hire him,"
he said. "No one said don't take this to the regents. I consulted
with no regents about this. I told a couple people that I was
worried and that this might be controversial, but no one called me
and said I should do anything."
Chemerinsky has been a professor at Duke since 2004, after 21 years
at the USC law school. He was a finalist for the dean's job at Duke
last year.
Times staff writer Richard C. Paddock contributed to this report.
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