Brian Leiter tells the tale of Chemerinsky being hired a dean of the new law school at UC Irvine, and then fired. The post includes this choice line “Yesterday, the Chancellor of the University of Cailfornia at Irvine flew to Durham 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.” Okay, what sort of an idiot doesn’t know what positions Chemerinsky has taken? I mean, I like the guy (and I agree with him, for the most part), but I don’t go around thinking that he is filing amicus briefs for the Washington Legal Foundation.
Update: The Chancellor responds, and I provide some of that "analysis" that the kids like here.
In case you are a political and therefore don’t know what you are talking about, Chemerinsky is the author of Federal Jurisdiction, which pretty much all of us have read.
Leiter writes:
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.
(Link to Wikipedia entry added by me, not Professor Leiter.) WSJ has some more accounts here, which includes this quote:
Chemerinsky said he had begun assembling a board of advisors that would have included conservatives such as Viet Dingh, a law professor at Georgetown, and Deanell Reece Tacha, a judge on 10th Circuit.
(Wikipedia entry on Dinh added by me)
Comments