Posted on 09/14/2007 8:31:04 AM PDT by Michael.SF.
The constitutional scholar says university officials told him the deal was off to head the new school because he was too ‘politically controversial.’
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 liberals and conservatives scholars who said Chemerinsky was being unfairly penalized.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
David Horowitz at FrontPage
Scott Johnson at PowerLine
Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit, multiple current posts
Steve Bainbridge at professorbainbridge.com
Eugene Volokh at volokhconspiracy
Victor Davis Hanson at The Corner (National Review)
and more.
The Golden Rule:
I think you nailed it!! the one about improving Duke Law...LOL!!!
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the position he was fired from.
I basically agree with the principle of 'Academic Freedom' and I wish that it existed in this country. It does not. Witness to that the long fight to get rid of Ward Churchill. IMHO, it was nice to see a liberal get a taste of 'his' own medicine. Perhaps a few libs will wake up and realize that they have been guilty of worse, a far greater number of times.
IMHO, it his highly likely that Bren had a say in this. $20,000,000 donation gives him that privilege. The big mistake was not having him on the panel, which probably is the case, to approve the hiring in the first place.
My guess, like yours, is that Bren blew a gasket when he heard of the Chemerinsky appointment. If so, it would be hard to blame him.
Still, in the end I have to defer to Hewitt, John Eastman, and the academic lawyers I linked. They know their business better than I do, and they think that dumping Chemerinsky broke the rules.
Still, in the end I have to defer to Hewitt, John Eastman, and the academic lawyers I linked. They know their business better than I do, and they think that dumping Chemerinsky broke the rules.
They are as pointy-headed and out of touch as Irwin, in their way. They blather on about how if it's wrong for a conservative prof to get canned for being conservative, it's wrong to do the same to a liberal. It's exasperating -- who says it's "wrong" to ban a conservative prof for being conservative?
Wrong or right has nothing to do with it -- it's the context of where he is. If it's a college overloaded with conservative profs, no one could rightly object to him being prematurely canned, as it were.
I've accepted Hugh's puffy pointy-headedness for awhile, but I'm somewhat disillusioned with John Eastman. I didn't know that about him. They are both very wrong to criticize UCI's dumping of Irwin.
Lots of people. Horowitz and the Academic Bill of Rights crowd say it is wrong because it infringes on academic freedom. Eugene Volokh (who is as pointy-headed as pointy-headed gets, a genius computer geek turned legal super-geek) and Hewitt say that the state of California cannot legally discriminate in hiring based on an applicant's politics. Beyond the principles involved, in practice those arguments are typically used to benefit academic conservatives. If conservatives as a group have to choose between abandoning those arguments and tolerating Chemerinsky, maybe we help ourselves more in the long run by taking one for the team.
I had dinner this evening in Orange County with an old friend, who is an attorney and practices in the area. He is as conservative as they get and active in regional politics. He said he was furious that Chemerinsky was fired. He said it would have immediately elevated UCI to being on track to become one of the most prominent law schools in Orange County, and given some time they could raise to being on the second tier behind some of the LA schools.
He described Chemerinsky as being the left wing equivalent of Robert Bork, in terms of knowledge of ConLaw.
He also added that he was "not an ACLU Type", but a reasonable guy.
Your friend should be happy.
I asked if the hiring-firing-rehiring had done irreparable harm to UCI's reputation. He felt that was not the case and that all of this will be soon forgotten.
To be honest, I was really surprised at his comments.
... California cannot legally discriminate in hiring based on an applicant's politics....
But California schools -- schools across the nation -- DO and have done so for decades, leaving us with schools, including law schools, that are dominated by the left. Horowitz and Volokh are like Dubya and his "new tone." It sounds really nice and pretty and noble and "taking one for the team" in the name of a falsley applied "principle." This is not a game, it's war, and the enemy (liberals) fight dirty. All Hewitt et al have done is to help place a very twisted political mind, Chemerinsky, in a place of even greater power and influence in a context of those institutions already being dominated by twisted minds.
Did you read on one of these threads the comments of a guy who's taken many of Chemerinsky's classes? Apparently Chemerinsky's lectures are filled with anti-Bush comments, even moreso than most of the liberal profs. This is a case of very misguided "princple" in that now Chemerinsky is even more powerful than before, and guess what? No matter how much we make nice, he is the enemy of our freedom.
I would say to Hewitt and Eastman and all those who came to Chemerinsky's aid in the name of that incomplete, uneven, feel-good "principle" -- SMOOTH MOVE, EX-LAX.
I agree.
1. The more noticed Chemerinsky gets, the more likely his suitableness politically for a judicial role. 'Nuff said.
2. That moment between ego and honor when you have to stop and ask, Am I doing this to look right or because it's truly the right thing?
That said, I cherish Hugh Hewitt as a radio guy. If not for him, I'd likely never had heard Mark Steyn. But I don't buy the "noble princple" angle on this. It's pointy-headed ivory-tower principle, as any future victim of a liberal Chemerinsky judgeship would tell you.
Anyhoo, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
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