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Neocon Nuttery See other Neocon Nuttery Articles Title: UCI law dean's firing irks some (CHEMERINSKY) UCI law dean's firing irks some But some support decision of university to retract job offer to noted Duke professor Erwin Chemerinsky. By MARLA JO FISHER AND MARTIN WISCKOL The Orange County Register IRVINE - A week ago, two days after he signed his contract to become the founding dean of UC Irvine's law school, Erwin Chemerinsky got a call from Chancellor Michael Drake. “He called to say some conservative opposition had developed to me, and we needed to strategize, maybe I needed to plan a trip out to Orange County,” Chemerinsky said. Chemerinsky, a law professor at Duke University known for championing abortion rights and separation of church and state, said he had offered to fly out from his home in North Carolina after Rosh Hashana. “I told him I would do whatever he wanted me to do,” said Chemerinsky, a nationally prominent constitutional scholar who taught for 21 years at the University of Southern California. But by Tuesday, Drake had rescinded the job offer, and the law school was embroiled in its first controversy. While what happened in the 96 hours between Drake's invitation to Chemerinsky and his withdrawal of the job offer remains a mystery, the incident has raised political hackles, inspired an online faculty-signed petition protesting the rejection of Chemerinsky and led some potential law students to reconsider applying to UCI. “On Tuesday morning, he referred to people opposing me, but he never identified them,” Chemerinsky said. On Thursday, Drake sent out an e-mail saying he had “made a management decision – not an ideological, political or personal one – to rescind Professor Chemerinsky's offer.” Yet as early as Aug. 29, Republican political consultant Matt Cunningham said he received a forwarded e-mail in which Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich asked fellow Republicans how Chemerinsky's appointment could be stopped. Known for high-profile cases on the separation of church and state, including seeking to remove the Ten Commandments from the Texas State Capitol, Chemerinsky also has represented abortion-rights activists and written on behalf of death-row inmates. He frequently writes op-ed pieces and appears weekly as the left-wing counterpart to Chapman University School of Law Dean John Eastman on a legal debate segment of conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt's radio show. Attorney Scott Baugh, chairman of the county GOP, said Chemerinsky shouldn't have been picked in the first place. “It's not because he's a liberal,” Baugh said. “It's because he's polarizing. You wouldn't hire Jerry Falwell to be the dean of religious studies at Berkeley.” The dean of UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall law school issued a statement to his faculty that seemed to agree. “I am very clear that this was not about Erwin's political or ideological views, nor about the fact that his appointment might have been controversial,” Dean Chris Edley wrote. “This was about Chancellor Drake's loss of confidence that Erwin fully appreciated a central truth about becoming a university official: In taking on these responsibilities one must subordinate a significant measure of autonomy in favor of the interests of the institution.” Yet Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez, a University of California regent, sent a letter to Drake on Thursday expressing his “profound displeasure and disappointment” over the incident. “As a Regent, I was never consulted about these actions, but only informed after the fact,” Nuñez wrote. UCI would not be the only law school in Orange County to have startup problems. In 2002, a jury agreed that Chapman University made misleading statements to its law students about its accreditation in the 1990s when its law school was being launched. In that case, 47 former students sued the school in a case that gained national attention. Today, though, Chapman has recovered and is fully accredited. In UCI's case, many Republicans in Orange County were shaking their heads. “He's exemplary. He's a marquee name,” said Irvine attorney Michael Capaldi, former president of the venerable GOP Lincoln Club and a former Chemerinsky student. “Every attorney I know – Republican or Democrat – thinks this is silly.” Republican attorney Jim Lacy, a former Dana Point councilman, called the firing “sad,” noting that Pepperdine University's law dean is conservative hero Ken Starr. “If a liberal community like Malibu can accept Ken Starr, why can't Orange County accept Erwin Chemerinsky?” Lacy asked. “He would draw national attention to UCI the way nobody else could. What Orange County really needs is a great law school, and when you start out of the box with someone like him, you're going to attract high-quality students and other high-quality faculty.” Meanwhile, 190 people signed an online UCI faculty petition criticizing the firing as a “deep violation.” Some would-be students said the incident was giving them doubts. “I just don't know how they're going to bounce back from this atrocious disgrace,” said Anne-Marie Dao, a 2006 UCI graduate from Yorba Linda who had planned to apply to the new UCI law school this fall. “So you want a boring dean? A lesser-known dean? It doesn't make sense.” Staff writers John Gittlesohn and Tony Saavedra contributed to this story. Contact the writer: 714-796-7994 or mfisher@ocregister.com
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But something caused Chancellor Drake to rescind the offer two days before Rosh Hashana, on Tuesday. Remarkable haste. I wonder what that something was. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has revealed that, when Drake flew to Durham to give Chemerinsky the bad news, he was in D.C. And both Drake and Chemerinsky say that Chemerinsky's op ed in August criticizing Gonzales played a large role in Drake's decision to rescind the offer. I wonder just who Drake saw while he was in D.C., and what they had to say to him.
Chemerinsky's liberal and "polarizing" views have been very well-known about him for a long time. What JUST happened to make UCI change its mind about him?
I've often heard Chemerinsky debate Hugh Hewitt on Hewitt's radio show, which originates out of L.A. Chemerinsky's views were very well known, above all among conservative lawyers. As a matter of fact, Hewitt is one of a large number of conservative lawyers who have protested Drake's decision.
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