Letters to the Editor
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Dean Edley's View of Academic Freedom
The fact that the memo came from Boalt Hall got me to thinking about the controversy about the appointment of Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of the new UC Irvine Law School, and I ran across this article by Dean Edley written at the time (it will be recalled that UCI initially hired Chemerinsky, then rescinded the hire, then rehired him after a nonpartisan firestorm of criticism of the rescission).
http://berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan/2007/09/19_edley.shtml
Dean Edley's views of academic freedom in this article, not the claim that UCI backed away from Chemerinsky for political reasons, are what is "risible." (his word) If you are establishing a new law school with no profile, and you hire a high profile dean like Chemerisnky, you do so for exactly the reason that you want him to continue to comment on public affairs, only now he will do with the byline, "Dean, UC Irvine Law School."
When you compare this to his statement about Yoo, you can really see the hypocrisy. Yoo was not defending an unpopular defendant or prosecuting a popular one. He was not giving the best legal advice possible to a client in a difficult situation. Instead, he was giving "advice" to order, assuming the conclusion and then using whatever thin arguments he could muster to fill in the blanks. And the advice was, in the main, being given in advance of the actions. An honorable lawyer would have reached the opposite conclusion and then, if told his advice was not welcome, resigned.
It is perfectly appropriate for an academy to subject Yoo's actions to intense criticism. It is more than appropriate to do so when the result is the death of many people and the significant destruction of the good opinion of the United States of America in the world.