Academic-freedom advocates are justly up in arms over the fact that UC-Irvine rescinded– on political grounds–an agreement it had made with Duke Professor Erwin Chemerinsky to become the first dean of its new law school. Chemerinsky, whom the LA Times called one of the country’s leading constitutional- law experts, had seemed a major "get" for the school, till it thought over his politics. Liberal. Outspoken.
I smell a rat. Lots of professors are liberal and outspoken. And actually Chemerinsky is a sober sort; he served on police investigation panels in L.A. I wonder whether UC-Irvine got cold feet after someone pointed out to them that Chemerinsky represented the Corrie family in its suit against Caterpillar, the company that made the armored bulldozer that crushed young Rachel Corrie in Gaza in ’03…
