Newly hired dean of UC Irvine Law School fired for liberal political views

[TeamJordan23]

This just in: According to Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports, a blog on comings-and-goings in legal academia, UC Irvine, which recently got approval to start a law school, last week hired Duke’s Erwin Chemerinsky (pictured), a prominent constitutional law scholar, to be its inaugural dean — and then fired him yesterday because of his political views. (For background, here’s a recent Los Angeles Times story on Chemerinsky when he was a leading candidate for the job.)

According to Leiter’s report, about a week ago Chemerinsky signed a contract to be the dean of Irvine’s Donald Bren School of Law. But Yesterday, Irvine’s chancellor, Michael V. Drake, flew to Duke and fired Chemerinsky, “saying that he had not been aware of how Chemerinsky’s political views would make him a target for criticism from conservatives,” according to the report.

The new public law school is expected to begin classes in 2009. (For more on the school’s namesake Donald Bren, a billionaire real estate developer and big Republican donor, click here.)

UPDATE: We’ve spoken to Chemerinsky, who confirmed the account, though he said the chancellor was already in D.C. before he flew to Durham on Tuesday. (The Law Blog has a call in to Chancellor Drake.)

UPDATE: Some colleagues speculate that Irvine hoped to get more donations from Donald Bren, the real estate developer who endowed the Law School and who is also a major donor to the Republican Party . Whether Mr. Bren played any role in this is something that perhaps the newspapers which investigate this story may unearth. Even if financial gain was the motive, the University, I suspect, has miscalculated the costs and benefits of its misconduct, since the reputational damage the school will now incur is likely to be quite substantial.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/09/12/the-oc-law-school-edition/
http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2007/09/new-uc-irvine-l.html

[Warpy]

1. Depending on how the contract was worded

Chemerinsky has grounds to sue and can get rich on conservatism, even as conservatism gives a new law school a big, fat black eye.

I do love it when these morons shoot themselves in both feet.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Yeah, having a devotee of the Constitution at a law school wouldn't be a good thing . . .

[BrotherBuzz]

6. Good thing for John Yoo

I guess his position at Bolt school of law at UCB is secure.

A brief primer designed to help you understand the workings of our new, streamlined American system of government.

by Jon Carroll

Perhaps you have been unable to follow the intricacies of the logic used by John Yoo, the UC Berkeley law professor who has emerged as the president's foremost apologist for all the stuff he has to apologize for. I have therefore prepared a brief, informal summary of the relevant arguments.

Why does the president have the power to unilaterally authorize wiretaps of American citizens?

Because he is the president.

Does the president always have that power?

No. Only when he is fighting the war on terror does he have that power.

When will the war on terror be over?

The fight against terror is eternal. Terror is not a nation; it is a tactic. As long as the president is fighting a tactic, he can use any means he deems appropriate.

Why does the president have that power?

It's in the Constitution.

Where in the Constitution?

It can be inferred from the Constitution. When the president is protecting America, he may by definition make any inference from the Constitution that he chooses. He is keeping America safe.

Who decides what measures are necessary to keep America safe?

The president.

Who has oversight over the actions of the president?

The president oversees his own actions. If at any time he determines that he is a danger to America, he has the right to wiretap himself, name himself an enemy combatant and spirit himself away to a secret prison in Egypt.

But isn't there a secret court, the FISA court, that has the power to authorize wiretapping warrants? Wasn't that court set up for just such situations when national security is at stake?

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court might disagree with the president. It might thwart his plans. It is a danger to the democracy that we hold so dear. We must never let the courts stand in the way of America's safety.

So there are no guarantees that the president will act in the best interests of the country?

The president was elected by the people. They chose him; therefore he represents the will of the people. The people would never act against their own interests; therefore, the president can never act against the best interests of the people. It's a doctrine I like to call "the triumph of the will."

But surely the Congress was also elected by the people, and therefore also represents the will of the people. Is that not true?

Congress? Please.

It's sounding more and more as if your version of the presidency resembles an absolute monarchy. Does it?

Of course not. We Americans hate kings. Kings must wear crowns and visit trade fairs and expositions. The president only wears a cowboy hat and visits military bases, and then only if he wants to.

Can the president authorize torture?

No. The president can only authorize appropriate means.

Could those appropriate means include torture?

It's not torture if the president says it's not torture. It's merely appropriate. Remember, America is under constant attack from terrorism. The president must use any means necessary to protect America.

Won't the American people object?

Not if they're scared enough.

What if the Supreme Court rules against the president?

The president has respect for the Supreme Court. We are a nation of laws, not of men. In the unlikely event that the court would rule against the president, he has the right to deny that he was ever doing what he was accused of doing, and to keep further actions secret. He also has the right to rename any practices the court finds repugnant. "Wiretapping" could be called "protective listening." There's nothing the matter with protective listening.

Recently, a White House spokesman defended the wiretaps this way: "This is not about monitoring phone calls designed to arrange Little League practice or what to bring to a potluck dinner. These are designed to monitor calls from very bad people to very bad people who have a history of blowing up commuter trains, weddings and churches." If these very bad people have blown up churches, why not just arrest them?

That information is classified.

Have many weddings been blown up by terrorists?

No, they haven't, which is proof that the system works. The president does reserve the right to blow up gay terrorist weddings -- but only if he determines that the safety of the nation is at stake. The president is also keeping his eye on churches, many of which have become fonts of sedition. I do not believe that the president has any problem with commuter trains, although that could always change.

So this policy will be in place right up until the next election?

Election? Let's just say that we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. It may not be wise to have an election in a time of national peril.

[stranger81]

9. Yoo, fortunately, is a pariah at Boalt . . . . .

sorry, but have to stick up for my alma mater. He's a minority of one at Berkeley law, and thank god for that. I would love, though, to hear what (if anything) John Yoo and Dean Edley talk about over the water cooler.

[BrotherBuzz]

12. You should be proud of your alma mater.

But it burns my butt to no end to see the state paying that asshole a salary. What does he bring to the table besides twisted logic fallacies to serve own his purposes?

[defendandprotect]

17. McCarthism is not dead in the Repug party ---

this has been going on a long time -- this is simply more overt.

[BrotherBuzz]

18. Back in my day, the John Birch society the was driving force and power

Today, the bogyman is less defined and more diverse, but the people behind the curtain have learned their lessons well. Today we see the Straussians pitting man against man all in the name of the Nobel Lie.

Leo Strauss borrowed heavily from Goerings blueprint, and made but few changes:

"Strauss thought that a political order can be stable only if it is united by an external threat, and following Machiavelli, he maintains that if no external threat exists, then one has to be manufactured,". "Because mankind is intrinsically wicked, he has to be governed," Strauss wrote. "Such governance can only be established, however, when men are united-and they can only be united against other people." Strauss' established governance is made possible through "aggressive, belligerent foreign policy," and "perpetual war, not perpetual peace, is what Straussians believe in."

"Strauss' neoconservative students see foreign policy as a means to fulfill a 'national destiny'-as Irving Kristol defined it already in 1983-that goes far beyond the narrow confines of a 'myopic national security.'"

Hermann Goering is smiling.

[MrCoffee]

3. WTF? They didn't know Chemerinsky is a liberal?? Did they pick him out of a hat?

Our Federal Courts class had the honor of having Prof. Chemerinsky join us for a day as a guest professor. I've never in my life seen anyone as smart as he is.

[blogslut]

4. Oooh, looks like Mr. Bren might be a deadbeat dad

And has a judge in his pocket:

But how rich is the Irvine Co. chieftain? LA Superior Court Judge George Wu says Bren is “very, very, very, very, very, very, very rich.” Wu should know, but doesn’t want to: in a high-stakes case that pits Bren, a man Forbes magazine says is worth about $6 billion, against two of his own children, Wu has upheld Bren’s contention that no one, not even the offspring of Bren’s dangerous liaison with Jennifer Gold, has a right to examine the billionaire’s finances.

Three years ago, those children, Christie Alexis Bren, now 18, and David Leroy Bren, 14, sued Bren for unpaid child support. How much they’re owed hinges on the mystery of Bren’s wealth; under California law, child-support payments are linked to income—unless you’re what the state considers very rich. “One of the situations in which the formula child support can be disregarded is where a paying parent is an ‘extraordinarily high-income earner,’” says Irvine attorney David P. Toberty. “Philosophically, the thinking behind is that the formula would provide for an amount of child support so excessive for the child’s needs that it would be absurd.”

State law allows the extraordinarily high-income earner to refuse requests—even from the court itself—for specific financial information. Bren says he destroyed 10 critical years of financial records and therefore can’t say precisely how much he made after the two children were born. One thing is utterly clear: however rich—and Forbes’ estimate would put Bren at No. 104 in the world—Bren is wealthy enough to have the run of Wu’s courtroom...

link: http://oc-divorce.typepad.com/california_divorce_and_fa/2006/05/bren_vs_bren_ir.html

[Igel]

5. Deadbeat dads don't pay $160k/year. At least not usually.

The 'unpaid child support' is the claim that the kids want to prove. They want more than an average of $80k/year for child support. Who wouldn't?

So I can understand the law that says at a given point child support is properly unlinked from the payer's income.

Now, consider what child support is. It pays for their share of electricity, water, rent/overhead. It pays for their educational expenses (at the time), food, clothing, and reasonable entertainment. How many reasonably healthy kids do you know that need $80k for all that. Now, consider the kind of lifestyle that $80k just for *one* kid's expenses would be insufficient for.

[OzarkDem]

10. Sounds like they take after their dad

Good for them. Bleed the sucker for as much as you can, kids.

[Horse with no Name]

19. Child support does more than that.

It is supposed to make up for the loss of income AND lifestyle that they would have had with their non-custodial parent. Consider the question of is it FAIR that someone pay $24,000 in child support AND at the same time drive a $65,000 car or live in a million dollar home. Is that equitable?
It is based on salary--whether that salary is $1000 or $1,000,000.
A kid that is growing up in a wealthy environment is not served correctly by the courts to be put in (what they can consider) poverty.
My word to the folks that make big bucks.
You have two choices.
If you don't want the responsibility of raising your children then (a)Don't have them (b)stay married.

[tanyev]

7. Isn't it awful how Iraqis had to join the Baath party to get jobs as teachers or doctors?

Good thing nothing like that would ever happen here.



:sarcasm:

[stranger81]

8. Definitely their loss . . . . UCI will never get someone else as renowned

and well respected as Chemerinsky to take the job. He's a first rate scholar.

[hvn_nbr_2]

20. After this, they'll be lucky to get anyone competent.

Most assuredly, they'll only be able to get a wingnut for the job, but apparently that's all that would be acceptable to UCI and Bren anyway. They've pretty much shot their own credibility in the I-was-going-to-say-foot but maybe the head or the heart.

Maybe the Liberty Law School (or whatever Robertson's "school" is called) dean is available. :sarcasm:

[OzarkDem]

11. Regent University West

The GOP is probably looking to open a new branch on the west coast for educating right wing fundie lawyers.

[cascadiance]

13. Would be very nice if Chemerinsky would get one of the first SC Justice nominations!

When a Dem takes the white house! As Marjorie Cohn said on Jon Elliot's show last night, he's probably be an EXCELLENT selection for us! That might be a good way to in effect flip off UC-Irvine after such BS treatment from them!

[Quantess]

14. Here's your 5th rec!

I smell a lawsuit.

[huskerlaw]

15. UCI just screwed itself in the worst way

First of all, for a new law school to get a dean with the stature of Chemerinsky is nearly unheard of. It would have made them a player immediately.

Now, however, they've made it quite clear that whomever accepts the dean position next is nothing more than a puppet to Bren. Nobody's gonna want that job.

Huge mistake. HUUUUUUUUUGE.

And who better to assert a constitutional violation than, well...Erwin Chemerinsky.

This should get interesting.

[The Backlash Cometh]

16. This is just awful. It sounds like it's going to be turned into a public

school for Federalist Society candidates.