speaking of academic repression...

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

[Here's a LAT story about political repression against (get this) a
liberal! As far as I know, he's never even mentioned Israel.  It's
unclear as yet exactly what forces pushed the University of
California-Irvine's chancellor to fire him. Maybe it's the old John
Birch Society influence down there in Orange County.

[For those who don't know, the JBS was a early, rougher-edged, version
of the Reagan-Dubya coalitions. It's close to the center of the Orange
County Republican Party tradition, perhaps influencing the GOP only
via cultural channels. ]

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uci13sep13,1,1557790.story?ctrack=3&cset=true

>From the Los Angeles Times

UC Irvine aborts hiring Chemerinsky as law school dean

The constitutional scholar says university officials told him the deal
to head the new school was off because he was too 'politically
controversial.'

By Garrett Therolf and Henry Weinstein
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers

September 13, 2007

In a showdown over academic freedom, a prominent legal scholar said
Wednesday that UC 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 Drake 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 [yeah, right!] and that he had decided to reject Chemerinsky,
now of Duke University and formerly of USC, 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 made its way through academic and
legal circles nationally, where it came under criticism from liberal
and conservative scholars who said Chemerinsky was being unfairly
penalized.

"It seems late in the day to notice that 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 firing 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
quavering.

Legal academics said Chemerinsky's sacking could make it difficult for
UCI to attract a top-flight dean, students and faculty.

Douglas W. Kmiec, a prominent conservative constitutional law
professor at Pepperdine Law School in Malibu, called the development
"a tremendous setback for UC Irvine. It is a profound mistake in my
judgment 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 Aug. 16 opinion article in The Times, the same day the job
offer was made. In it, Chemerinsky asserted that Atty. Gen. 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." [horrors! criticizing Gonzo!]

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 that "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 advisors 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 that Drake told him during a meeting at the Sheraton
Hotel near the Raleigh-Durham airport that "concerns" had emerged from
the University of California regents [natch!], 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."

Drake drew support from Christopher Edley, dean of the Boalt Hall
School of Law at UC Berkeley, whom Drake consulted on the decision to
let Chemerinsky go.

"It appeared to me that Michael was willing to go forward in the face
of opposition but for the fact that he lost confidence in Erwin's
willingness to subordinate his autonomy and personal profile for the
good of the institution," Edley said.

Edley, who worked in the Clinton administration, said it was nothing
that he had not been called to do himself.

"I was questioned explicitly by people who feared I would turn the
deanship into a platform for my own ideological commitments," he said.
"But it was clear to me then, and it's clear to me now, that the job
requires something else."

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.

During his time in Los Angeles, Chemerinsky was a well-known figure
who helped write the city charter and was a frequent legal commentator
in the media.

In April 2005, Legal Affairs magazine named him one of "the top 20
legal thinkers in America."

UCI's law school, which is expected to welcome its first class in
2009, will be the first new public law school in California in 40
years.

Last month, the university announced that Newport Beach billionaire
Donald Bren had donated $20 million to fund the salary of the dean and
11 faculty positions and have the school named in his honor.

A spokesman for Bren said he had nothing to do with the ouster. "Mr.
Bren doesn't know Erwin Chemerinsky or know enough about him to have
an opinion about him or enough to express an opinion about him to
anyone."

Chemerinsky had told supporters that the first six to eight faculty
members would be from top 20 law schools, and they would be "stars."

"The goal is that UCI will be a top 20 law school someday," he said in
an e-mail.

Among those Chemerinsky had approached about joining the faculty was
Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor who teaches criminal law
and legal ethics at Loyola Law School [a wholly-owned subsidiary of my
employers] in Los Angeles and who is a frequent commentator on TV and
radio.

Levenson said she was deeply disturbed by the news. "For a new law
school to start infringing on academic freedom, even before it opens
its door, does not bode well for this institution," Levenson said. "I
have talked to Erwin quite a bit about his plans for the new law
school. He did not have a political agenda. He had an excellence
agenda."

"If there's room for Ken Starr and John Eastman to be the dean of a
law school, there's room for Erwin Chemerinsky," Levenson said,
referring to the conservative constitutional scholars who are deans at
the Pepperdine and Chapman law schools, respectively.

Eastman and Chemerinsky frequently debate constitutional law issues on
television and radio, and he said their approach to these issues was
nearly always in conflict, but "what I appreciate is his willingness
to engage in the debate."

Jon Wiener, a UCI history professor, called the dismissal "the biggest
violation of academic freedom in the history of UCI. Nationally, it is
the biggest academic freedom case of the year. Some people are saying
we have to take this to the faculty senate and make a faculty-wide
statement condemning it."

--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) --  Karl, paraphrasing Dante.